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THE 



Roman Catholic Church 

fg W / i AND 

Free Thought. 



A CONTROVERSY BETWEEN 

ARCHBISHOP PURCELL, 

Of Cincinnati, 

AND 

THOMAS TICKERS, 

Minister of the First Congregational Church of the same City. 

TOGETHER WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING 

The Encyclical Letter and Syllabus 

OF POPE PIUS IX, DATED DECEMBER 8, 1864, 
In the original Latin, ivitk a faithful translation 



Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to 
conscience, above all liberties." — Milton's Areopagitica. 



CINCINNATI 



PUBLISHED BY THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 

AND FOR SALE BY 

R. W. CARROLL & CO., 117 WEST FOURTH STREET. 
1868. 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

THOMAS VICKERS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
District of Ohio. 

STEREOTYPED AT THE FRANKLIN TYPE FOUNDRY, CINCINNATI, 0. 



PREFACE AND DEDICATION. 



To the Editor of the Cincinnati Gazette : 

Dear Sir : 

Partly because I have been urgently requested, and partly from the 
hope that some good may be effected by it, I now give this controversy in 
a connected form to the public. And, inasmuch as I am not only willing, 
but desirous, that both sides should have a full and candid hearing, I have 
printed all of Archbishop Purcell's articles in full, even to the long extract 
from his Pastoral appended to the editorial in the Catholic Telegraph of Oc- 
tober 30th. Every thing appears here precisely as it was originally printed 
in the Catholic Telegraph, the Cincinnati Commercial, and the Cincinnati 
Gazette, without addition or abbreviation. In the articles of Archbishop 
Purcell I have allowed many apparently typographical errors to stand, espe- 
cially such as are found in the Latin quotations, and in the names of persons 
and places. I did this for the reason that after the articles had appeared in 
the Catholic Telegraph as here printed, Archbishop Purcell made no attempt 
to have them corrected before they appeared in the Gazette, and therefore left 
me to infer that he had a peculiar theory of orthography, with which it would 
be better not to meddle. 

The only thing not hitherto published is the sermon from the text "Always 
learning." I publish it because it treats more fully a point elsewhere only 
incidentally touched upon. I intended also to publish a sermon on the 
" Causes of Religious Intolerance and Persecution," delivered November 24th, 
but the space already occupied by the discussion is so much greater than I 
originally expected, that I was compelled to exclude it. The open letter ad- 
dressed by Mr. Paul Mohr to Archbishop Purcell reviews several points of 
the discussion in so clear and succinct a manner, and awakened such gen- 
eral interest at the time of its appearance, that its republication seemed neces- 
sary to make the documents of the controversy complete. The celebrated 
Encyclical Letter of Pius IX, issued December 8th, 1864, with its Syllabus 
of Modern Errors, in the original with a parallel translation, will add greatly 
to the value and interest of the book. It is a document of the greatest im- 
portance ; for it contains in itself either the most brilliant confirmation of the 
position and claims of the Roman Church as opposed to all the achievements 

(iii) 



IV PREFACE AND DEDICATION. 



of modern science, to the whole tendency of modern thought, the whole moral 
basis on which modern society rests, and the whole theory on which the best 
modern governments are conducted; or it contains the most complete and 
crushing refutation of all the assumptions, fallacies, and fabrications of Ro- 
manism, as opposed to the spirit of the modern age, Avhich it is possible to 
desire or imagine. At any rate, it is a document which will hold a promi- 
nent place in the history of the Roman Church and her conflict with that 
advancing civilization of the world, which, as I believe, will sooner or later 
engulf her. 

I at first intended merely to reprint the translation which appeared in the 
Dublin Review, April, 1865, but on comparing it carefully with the original, 
I found it so full of errors, and, in the attempt to imitate the style of the 
original, so bunglingly written, that I had no choice but to retranslate the 
whole document. I can not even now offer it as a model of good English, as 
I imagine it will not occur to any one to include the original in a Delectus 
for the use of students as a model of classic Latin. 

So far as my own sermons and articles are concerned, I could have wished 
time to make them better than they are, both as to form and matter, but the 
controversy was begun and carried on amid other pressing and imperative 
duties, which gave me no opportunity for more careful and studious prepara- 
tion. But every body will see that this is one of the cases to which the canon 
nonumque prematur in annum does not apply, and many will doubtless prefer 
this form of discussion to a more elaborate treatise. 

If this controversy shall have at all contributed to expose the deadly hatred 
of the Roman Catholic Church toward all free institutions, and to show that, 
while for the present accommodating itself to the exigencies of its situation 
in this country, its fundamental principle is that of intolerance toward all 
who are without its pale, and that it only waits for the favorable oppor- 
tunity to spring at the throat of all our liberties, I shall be amply rewarded 
for my labors. 

I can not close without expressing my thanks to you, sir, for the generous 
manner in which you have opened the columns of the Gazette to me, and for 
the impartiality with which you have treated the whole discussion. Permit 
me, as a slight token of my obligation and esteem, to inscribe this little book 
to you, and through you to all lovers of liberty, wherever they may be found. 

THOMAS VICKERS. 



Cincinnati, December 30, 1867. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

1. Address of Rev. Thomas Vickers at the Laying of the Corner- 

stone of St. John's Church, 7 

2. Sermon of Archbishop Purcell on Laying the Corner-stone of 

St. Rose Church, 12 

3. Sermon of Rev. Thomas Vickers in reply to Archbishop Pur- 

cell, . . , 16 

4. Reply of Archbishop Purcell to the foregoing Sermon, . . 27 

5. Rejoinder by Rev. Thomas Vickers, 34 

6. "Always Learning," a Sermon by Rev. Thomas Vickers, . . 43 

7. Reply of Archbishop Purcell to the foregoing Rejoinder, . . 48 

8. Protestantism — its Rise and Progress, a Sermon by Rev. Tho- 

mas Vickers, in commemoration of the 350th Anniversary 

of the Reformation, 56 

9. Letter of Rev. Thomas Vickers to Archbishop Purcell, . . 63 

10. Letter of Archbishop Purcell to Rev. Thomas Vickers, . . 70 

11. Rejoinder by Rev. Thomas Vickers, 78 

12. Reply of Archbishop Purcell, 87 

13. Final Rejoinder by Rev. Thomas Vickers, 94 

14. Letter of Paul Mohr to Archbishop Purcell, 108 

APPENDIX, containing the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX, and 
the Syllabus of Modern Errors, dated Dec. 8th, 1864, with 
a parallel translation. 



w 



THE 



Church and Free Thought, 



ADDRESS OF REV. THOMAS TICKERS, 

At the Laying of the Corner-Stone of St. John's German Protestant Church 

of Cincinnati. 



Introductory Note. 

On Sunday, September 29, 1867, the corner-stone of St. John's 
German Protestant Church was laid with the customary cere- 
monies, which were witnessed by one of the largest concourses of 
persons ever assembled on a similar occasion in this city. Ad- 
dresses were delivered by Rev. August Kroell, the pastor of the 
church, Rev. G. W. Eisenlohr, Rev. Karl Tuercke, and Rev. 
Thomas Yickers. The succeeding controversy grew out of the 
remarks of the latter as published in the Cincinnati Commercial 
the following day. 

Address of Rev. Thomas Yickers. 

Rev. Thomas Vickers, of the First Congregational Society, 
began by saying that he had been chosen to express the sympathy 
of the American population of our city with the occasion. He 
had been announced to make a speech in English, but he saw 
such a sea of German faces around him that he could not re- 
frain from addressing the assembly in German. Nothing sepa- 
rated men from each other so much as a difference of language. 
Mountains, rivers, deserts, or seas were not so great a barrier 
between the nations as a difference in the mother tongue. He 
therefore begged leave, although not a German, or of German 

(?) 



8 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



origin, to make his speech in the German language. The follow- 
ing is a translation of his remarks : 

Dear Friends: — This is a solemn and inspiring occasion. 
We are met together for the purpose of celebrating one of the 
most solemn acts of worship in which the modern world can par- 
ticipate^ — in order, in the name of both God and Man, for the 
spiritual advantage and improvement of the community in which 
we live, as a representation and illustration of the indissoluble 
union between the temporal and the eternal, between heaven and 
earth, between Deity and humanity, to lay the foundation-stone 
of a new temple of religion. Yes, it is indeed an inspiring 
thought, that in the midst of the hurry and impatience of the 
modern world, in the midst of the noise and press of business, 
the conflict of material interests, in spite of the pleasure-seeking 
and superficial spirit of the age, in spite of a soulless and heart- 
less materialism, such acts of worship are still possible, such 
temples can still be built ; in short, that there are still men who 
have a heart and sense for religion, for whom there is still some- 
thing higher and nobler than their daily bread and their daily 
pleasure : something which is more lasting and more consolatory 
than all the riches and all the honor in the world. 

There are, indeed, others who have not been swallowed up in 
the maelstrom of modern life, who take an interest in purely 
spiritual things ; and they also build temples, temples of art and 
science, but temples of religion they despise. For them, religion 
is a thing of the past, a legend of times long gone by, no longer 
a living truth. It is a sad fact that there are people enough of 
this sort, and will be, for a long time to come. But they exist 
to the shame and disgrace of the Church. They are a living 
witness to the hollowness and degradation of ecclesiastical Chris- 
tianity, to the contradiction, now patent to every man of sense, 
between the old fables of the middle ages and the grand spiritual 
acquisitions of the modern world. 

Let us not quarrel with those who have turned away with dis- 
gust from the silliness and stupidity of the Church, with fright 
and horror from her spiritual emptiness. Let us rather seek to 
abate the evil — to improve our own spiritual status. 

Almost all the nations of antiquity regarded the holy places, 
the temples which were consecrated to the service of the gods, as 



ADDRESS OF REV. THOMAS VICKERS. 



at the same time places of refuge, to which the oppressed could 
flee and feel themselves secure from the persecution of their 
enemies. Had a slave run away from the ill treatment of his 
master, did a conquered warrior wish to escape the vengeance 
of his enemy, or one accused before the courts wish to flee the 
threatened penalty of the law, the door of the temple was 
always open, and he who succeeded in reaching this was, from 
that moment, under the special protection of the Deity. He 
whose boldness and impudence led him to pursue his victim thus 
far, to do him any injury whatever in this sacred place, or to 
tear him away from its protection, was guilty of the highest, the 
most abominable crime against God and man. 

This custom, which was of heathen origin, was afterward trans- 
ferred to Christianity. Under the reign of Constantine the 
Great, the Christian churches were already regarded as places of 
refuge for all who desired protection, and in the year 431, under 
Theodosius II, this privilege was extended to all the courts, pas- 
sages, gardens, and houses belonging to the domain of the several 
churches. In the following centuries the ecclesiastical councils 
extended this right of the Church still further. Of course this 
privilege led to great abuses, not only among the heathen, but 
also among Christians; it therefore came gradually into disuse, 
and was finally formally abrogated. 

But this custom had, nevertheless, a profound and noble mean- 
ing; there was a true thought at the bottom of this rather rude 
manifestation. Somewhere on earth a place was necessary where, 
in the hour of his utmost need, man could feel himself secure from 
the violence of his fellow-men. Neither in the antique states nor 
in the Middle Ages could the State, as such, afford this protection. 
This was possible only to God, or, in other words, to the Church. 
But in this, as in so many other things, modern civilization 
brought changes. The State was obliged to assert its prerogative 
in opposition to the Church ; civil law developed itself; it as- 
sumed, as a matter of course, the protection against mere phys- 
ical violence ; and thus the ecclesiastical right of refuge, in its tra- 
ditional form, disappeared. 

But it is not the mission of progressive knowledge to destroy 
the spiritual essence of superannuated forms, but rather to pre- 
serve it. And, my friends, the time seems to have come when we 



10 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



ought to inquire whether for the modern world this old ecclesias- 
tical privilege has lost all meaning and significance. Is there no 
noble sense in which the Church of to-day can be a sanctury, a place 
of refuge ? I answer confidently, there is a sense in which the Church 
not only can, but must be such a place of refuge, if she will not 
dig her own grave and vanish from the earth ; the Church ought 
to be, and must be, a sanctuary for free thought — a place of refuge, 
a home, for the spirit. Hitherto she has never been this. Every 
thing else has been protected, except free thought; every thing 
else has found a refuge in the Church, except free thought. Free 
thought is the only thing which the Church has never tolerated. 
Thought she has never tolerated at all, for thought is, in its 
essence, free, and can not be enslaved. Where slavery is, there 
thought is not, and can not be. 

There was, indeed, a time in which the Church was the home 
of all culture and all knowledge ; in which the old heroes of sci- 
ence and philosophy, when the night of barbarism fell upon them, 
took refuge in the monasteries, in the cells of the monks. But 
how was it possible that they could feel themselves at home in such 
company? As one, in crossing the Alps, gladly takes refuge in 
the friendly hospice while the storm rages without, and does not 
scorn to pass an hour in conversation with its well-fed monks, 
who, however, seldom betray any appreciation of that which lies 
beyond their limited circle of vision, and consequently make it 
easy to part from them — so those old spiritual heroes of Greek 
and Roman antiquity spent the night of the " Dark Ages " with 
the monks of the Catholic Church, chatted with them now and 
then, but wisely kept their own counsel in regard to all prob- 
lems of a more profound nature, and with the first dawn of the 
new morning joyfully went their way toward a more congenial 
companionship. To drop the metaphor, the Church was for cen- 
turies almost the only representative of science and culture ; but 
the world has, after all, little to thank her for, except the preser- 
vation and transmission of the spiritual treasures of antiquity. It 
was never possible for the mind to develop itself under her do- 
minion ; wherever free thought attempted to show itself it was 
immediately crushed out. There was plenty of dead erudition ; 
but living investigation and free thinking — none at all. It is true 
that, as the new era began to dawn, the Church founded numerous 



ADDRESS OF REV. THOMAS VICKERS. 11 



universities, but not for the purpose of free mental development, 
such as we now demand, but for the purpose of training spiritual 
prize-fighters, whose mission was to defend the dogmas of the 
Church, and to increase the authority of the clergy. Just as soon 
as such a one began to think for himself, she led him to the stake. 

So it has been, my friends, and so it has remained down to 
the present hour. The Church, as such, whether she be Roman 
Catholic or Protestant, has undergone no essential change in this 
respect. To her, free thought and free investigation are just as 
heretical as ever they were. But free thought has taken bloody 
vengeance upon her. To-day she is forsaken of all thinkers ; she 
is the object of mockery and contempt. She banished free thought 
from her hearth-stone; but while it went on conquering and to 
conquer, subjecting the whole world to its rule, she herself became 
a prey to the rats and mice of history. Well for her, if, even in 
this " eleventh hour," she repent and mend her ways. She must 
become the sanctuary, the home of free thought. It is only in the 
distant future, if at all, that she can become again and in reality the 
representative of all knowledge and culture. For the present, if her 
mission is to become the mirror of the scientific knowledge of our 
time, she must appropriate to herself whatever facts of science, 
history, and criticism the modern age has to offer her. She must 
digest them, and reproduce them unalloyed. She must " stoop to 
conquer;" she must learn of the world in order to win it for 
herself. 

And finally, my friends, as it is the mission of every living 
ecclesiastical community to reconcile modern science and modern 
consciousness to religion, to mediate between Church and civiliza- 
tion; so, as a German Church on American soil, it is your espe- 
cial mission, so far as it lies in your power, to procure for Ger- 
man civilization — and by that I mean German scientific culture 
and German depth of thought and feeling — its proper acknowl- 
edgment and its rightful influence in this your adopted home. 
And to this end I, as the only representative on this platform of 
the Anglo-American part of our population, offer you my hand 
and heart. Let us, then, in the expectation of a new era of spir- 
itual freedom, and with the resolution to work for it, lay the 
corner-stone of this new temple of the religion of the spirit ; and 
may the blessing of God rest upon it. 



12 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



SERMON OF ARCHBISHOP PUR CELL, 

On Laying the Coi*ner-Stone of St. Rose Church. 



The corner-stone of St. Eose Church, at the foot of Torrence 
Road, East Front Street, was laid on Sunday, October 6, 1867, on 
which occasion Archbishop Purcell delivered the following ser- 
mon: 

Beloved Bkethkex: At the close of the interesting cere- 
monies which you have just witnessed, permit me to direct your 
attention for a few moments to the utterances of a Congregational 
minister, at the laying of the corner-stone of the St. John's Ger- 
man Protestant Church, in this city, on the 29th of September. 

The reverend gentleman to whom I allude is reported in one 
of our city papers, of the 30th nit., to have, as it seems to me — 
and as I think it will to you — involved himself in palpable con- 
tradictions ; to have stated as truisms what I can not help regard- 
ing as glaring misstatements, and to have wantonly and gratui- 
tously insulted the church organization to which he volunteered 
to speak the sympathy of our American population. 

The contradiction is this : In one place he tells us there was, 
indeed, a time in which the Church was the home of all culture 
and all knowledge, in which the old heroes of science and philos- 
ophy, when the night of barbarism fell upon them, took refuge. 
Kow, without stopping to inquire of the gentleman who those old 
heroes were, whence they had come, and when or by whom they 
had been educated — questions which we well know he would be 
puzzled to answer — we shall only ask him how all this culture 
and knowledge existed in the Church where he falsely asserts 
free thought was never tolerated? Thought is essentially free. 
God made it free, and no tyrant, no power, can chain it ; neither 
the power of God, who wills it free, nor the power of man, who 
can not deprive it of its freedom. How, then, could the Church 
enslave it; or how could she have been the home of all culture 



SERMON OF ARCHBISHOP PURCELL. 13 



and all knowledge if she had enslaved it ? Then, de jure et de 
facto, the statement of Rev. Mr. Vickers is false, and in making 
it he involves himself in a palpable contradiction. 

The Church, he says again, was for centuries almost the only- 
representative of science and culture ; and in the same breath he 
pretends to say that she crushed free thought whenever it appeared. 
Now, was there no free thought illustrated, none exercised, by the 
admirable apologists of Christianity, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, 
Lactantius, Augustine, Chrysostum, Cyprian, Thomas Aquinas, 
Copernicus, Christopher Columbus, compared to whom it is no 
disparagement to Mr. Vickers to say he is a mental pigmy? 
Were not the martyrs of religion at the same time the martyrs 
of free thought when they nobly dared to speak the truth before 
the tribunals of Paganism, the fasces of the consuls, the roaring 
of the wild beasts, and the crackling of the flames in the amphi- 
theaters ? And all these were the obedient children of a church 
which put an extinguisher on freedom of thought. Credat Mr. 
Vickers. When men choose to use their freedom to err, she did 
not, and she could not hinder them. Arius, Macedonius, Pela- 
gius, Manes, Origen, Luther, Calvin, Zuinglius, Beza, and all the 
heresiarchs who fell like withered branches from the tree of life 
during the long lapse of ages, were not led by her to the stake 
any more than Servetus, or the New England witches were, nor 
did she gather them for an auto dafe. 

The world, he says, has little to thank the Church for but the 
preservation and transmission of the spiritual treasures of an- 
tiquity. Well, we incline to think that this was a great deal. 
But will the gentleman deign to inform us who it was that fought 
the great battle with Paganism, and Mohammedanism, and bar- 
barism, and won it? Was it not the Church? And for this 
have we not to thank her? 

Will he tell us of a single nation on the face of the globe that 
was converted from idolatry to Jesus Christ except by a mission- 
ary of the Catholic Church? And if this be so, have we not 
something else — have we not a great deal to thank her for be- 
sides the preservation and transmission of the spiritual treasures 
of antiquity ? 

The Church, says her reverend reviler, founded numerous uni- 
versities, but not for the purpose of free mental development, such 



14 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



as we now demand, but for the training of spiritual prize-fighters, 
whose mission was to defend the dogmas of the Church, etc. Well, 
for what mission or purpose did Christ found the college of the 
Apostles and send them forth when well trained by him ; was it not 
to be spiritual prize-fighters ? Was it not to tolerate no Pagan vice 
or error? Was it not to beat down every right and might that 
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring every 
understanding — Pagan free thinkers who were free from thinking 
aright — to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians x : 5.) Did 
not Jesus Christ say that whoever refused to hear the Church 
should be reputed as a heathen and a publican? (Matthew xviii: 
17.) Did he not charge his apostles not to teach more or less, or 
otherwise, than he had commanded them ? (Matthew xxiii : 20.) 
With these and sundry other similar texts staring him in the face, 
will Mr. Vickers have the hardihood to arraign Jesus Christ of 
intolerance for interdicting free thought? It is God's truth and 
not man's thinking that make men truly free. Did not St. Paul 
interdict freedom of thought and freedom of speech in those against 
whom he charged his disciple Timothy, for having gone astray 
and turned to vain talking, desiring to be teachers of the law, not 
understanding what they say or whereof they affirm. (1 Timothy 
i : 6, 7.) Did St. Paul stand up for the free thinking of those 
w T ho, when they knew God did not glorify him as such, but be- 
came foolish in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was dark- 
ened; for saying they were wise they became fools. (Rom. i: 21, 
22.) The Catholic universities, then, would have been repudiated 
by Jesus Christ, if, instead of keeping and guarding faithfully 
" the form of sound words," they had, under pretext of allowing 
free thinking, permitted Gospel truths to be denied, and the name 
of Christ blasphemed, and his holy religion itself obliterated from 
a world which he had brought it from heaven to redeem. No, 
Christians, the Church leaves to the human mind all needful lib- 
erty. She refuses none but what is " a cloak for malice." She 
gives it a charter like that of the ocean, to roll its mountain bil- 
lows as it listeth, but she sets it at the same time a barrier from 
which its proud swelling waves must retire. The Church, says 
Mr. Vickers, whether she be Catholic or Protestant — take heed to 
this compliment, reverend pastors and people of St. John's and 
other Protestant organizations of Cincinnati — the Church, whether 



SERMON OF ARCHBISHOP PURCELL. 15 



Catholic or Protestant — Mr. Yickers is happily of neither j he is 
a free thinking Congregationalist — has undergone no essential 
change in this respect. To her free thought and free investiga- 
tions are just as heretical as ever they were. And for this she 
has become a prey to the rats and mice of history. Whether this 
be true or not, of Protestantism , Mr. Vickers may be the best 
judge ; but even if he were one of the noxious little animals, he 
should know by this time, at least, that though they may gnaw a 
parchment, the foundations of the Catholic Church are too deep, 
her walls too massive, her battlements too divinely guarded to be 
in the slightest danger from such sappers and miners. But as for 
us Catholics, who are the children of the saints, and who look for 
that life which God will give to those who never change their 
faith from him, we place, adjust and bless this corner-stone, not 
for a tower of Babel, for which the speech which we have re- 
viewed might be appropriate, but for a Christian temple. We 
place, adjust and bless it not for a free thinking, free talking, free 
loving, free any thing, but in the name of the Father, and the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost, that true faith may flourish here with 
the wholesome fear of God and brotherly love ; that it may be a 
house of prayer, that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ may be 
invoked and praised, and his holy sacraments administered in it ; 
in a word, that a mystic ladder — such as the patriarch beheld in 
his dream in the wilderness — may be established here, on which 
the angels of God may descend and ascend, bringing down his 
blessings from heaven to earth, and taking back the homage of 
loving, believing, grateful hearts to him, the Father of lights, 
from whom every good and perfect gift, with true religion, came 
down to men. 



16 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



SERMON OF BEY. THOMAS TICKERS, 

Preached October 13, 1867, in reply to the Sermon of Arclibishop Pur cell. 



Text : And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast ? who 
Is able to make war with him ?— Rev. xiii : 4. 

Dear Friexds : — I ought, perhaps, by way of introduction to 
what I have to say to you this morning, to state briefly the occa- 
sion of my sermon. It is known to you that I was invited by the 
St. John's German Protestant Society of this city to participate in 
the ceremony of laying the corner-stone of their new church edi- 
fice. I felt bound by the importance of the occasion, by the fact 
that the St. John's Society stands committed to liberal Christianity, 
and by my own position as minister of the only church in our city 
which acknowledges no bonds of sect or creed, to utter my deepest 
convictions in regard to the mission of the living church to the 
present age. In attempting to impress upon the minds of my 
hearers the precise nature of this mission, I could not very well 
help referring to the history of the Church in general and to its 
present condition ; and referring to it with this distinct object in 
view, I could not choose but run the risk of giving offense in 
various directions. Not that I wished to offend any body, far 
from it; but you can never " tell the truth and shame the devil," 
without the devil rising up against you and seeking to devour 
you. So it was in this case. I was obliged, by the truth of his- 
tory, to say that the Church had hitherto tolerated every thing 
but thought — this she had never tolerated; that she had been a 
sanctuary for every thing else, but wherever free thought had 
attempted to show itself she had trampled it under foot. I as- 
serted this of the Church in general, as an organized institution, 
making no exception in favor of any ecclesiastical body. It 
seems, however, that I committed a very grave offense in not 
excepting the Roman Catholic Church from these charges. For 
this offense Archbishop Purcell undertook last Sunday, on the 
occasion of laying the corner-stone of St. Rose Church, to in- 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 17 



flict upon me the only ecclesiastical punishment which, in our 
country, God be thanked, he or any other priest is permitted to 
administer — he preached a sermon against me. It is this sermon 
to which I intend to offer some reply to-day. 

I am bound to say, at the outset, that I have no personal 
quarrel with Archbishop Purcell, no personal grievance to redress: 
that were there no supreme issue at stake, no dangerous false- 
hood to unmask, no truth to defend, no point to be made in fa- 
vor of the modern age, and its spiritual needs, as against the 
arrogance and despotism of a rotten ecclesiastical institution, I 
should gladly let all such archiepiscopal expectorations go un- 
noticed to that early oblivion to which the common sense of the 
age consigns them. I furthermore hold myself excused from re- 
plying to intellectual rowdyism in its own dialect; I leave such 
fine terms as " mental pigmy" and " reverend reviler," and all 
such theological shillalahs, to those who, by education and breed- 
ing (or the want of these) are accustomed to their use. 

Now that you understand the issue, let us proceed to the mat- 
ter in hand. Let us see whether I involved myself in " palpa- 
ble contradictions ;" whether I made charges in one breath, which 
I virtually took back in the next. I admitted, on the one hand, 
that there had been a period in which the Church was the home 
of all culture and all knowledge ; but asserted, on the other, that 
free thought had never been tolerated within her borders — this 
is the alleged contradiction. And there is, indeed, a contradiction 
here, but a very different one from that which the Archbishop 
meant to satirize — one which is the most biting satire upon the 
whole Roman Catholic institution. It does not require a very 
large measure of scholastic acumen to distinguish between a con- 
tradiction in the statement of facts and a contradiction in the facts 
themselves; the one is a logical blunder, the other an historical one ; 
the one is generally the cause of merriment at the stupidity of 
him who makes it, the other is the cause of great historical con- 
vulsions, the ruin of States, the downfall of dynasties, and the 
destruction of peoples. Take an example : It was the latter kind 
of contradiction — the contradiction between a republican form of 
government and the institution of slavery — which involved this 
country in a terrific war of four years' duration. It is the same 
contradiction, the conflict between republicanism and slavery, 
2 



18 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



which has just resulted in our own State in the momentary tri- 
umph of despotism, the refusal, on no ground of intelligence or 
morals, but simply on the ground of a difference in the color of 
the skin, to confer the rights of citizenship on a whole class of 
men who nobly bear its burdens. That is the kind of contra- 
diction which, if not removed, will yet break this nation to 
atoms. And this is the kind of contradiction which my address 
at the laying of the corner-stone of St. John's Church was in- 
tended to illustrate — the contradiction was in the facts and not in 
the statement. 

It is an old trick of the sophists to distract the attention of 
their hearers from the chief points at issue by simply mentioning 
them and then passing them by as of no consequence to the argu- 
ment, while they devote all their forces either to the creation of 
false issues or to the refutation of that which is merely incidental. 
It is a fine example of this sophistry when the Archbishop says 
he will not stop to inquire who " those old heroes of science and 
philosophy were" — who, when the night of barbarism fell upon 
them, took refuge in the monasteries of the Catholic Church ; he 
will not stop to inquire " whence they had come, when or by 
whom they had been educated," for he assumes to know that 
these are questions which I should be " puzzled to answer." But 
this happens to be one of the points about which I must compel 
him to stop and inquire. The heroes to whom I referred were the 
poets, historians, and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. 
Is it any great task for a scholar to answer the question where 
they came from, when and by whom they were educated ? Or did 
the Archbishop mean it to be understood that the Romish Church 
educated them — men who lived centuries, some of them almost 
millenniums, before she came into existence ? To be sure it would 
require no extraordinary display of archiepiscopal dialectics to 
maintain such a thesis, for the new dogma of the " immaculate 
conception" makes Jesus the cause of Ins own grandmother's 
having brought his mother into the world without due process of 
nature. 

But let us lay aside the metaphor entirely, and see what the 
plain facts of the case are. After the fall of the Roman empire 
in the west, there was an almost universal loss of that learning 
which the Greeks and Romans had accumulated. For centuries, 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 19 



taste and knowledge had been declining, but the irruption of the 
barbarian nations put an end to them entirely. Up to this time 
there had been some show of learning and culture among the so- 
called Fathers of the Church, but even that died out. Outside 
the ecclesiastical order, ignorance reigned supreme ; but the knowl- 
edge found within it was scarcely worthy of the name. I repeat, 
there was a time when the Church was the home of all culture 
and all knowledge, but, after all, this lamp of learning in the 
Church shed such a feeble and ineffectual light that it was scarcely 
distinguishable from the surrounding darkness. It was in the 
period known as the Dark Ages. The literary treasures of ancient 
Greece were stowed away in the monasteries, but the language in 
which they were written was almost entirely forgotten. Not one 
in a hundred of so-called scholars could read them. Even the 
Latin, the official language of the Church, became so corrupt and 
barbarous that it could scarcely be called Latin any longer. Now 
and then there was one who read and copied an old author, or 
made extracts from the " fathers," on points of church doctrine, 
but thought, as such, was utterly out of the question. There was 
no inducement to think ; the truth had been attained, and he who 
presumed to question it was worse than a heathen. 

Archbishop Purcell asks, with an air of triumph — which no 
doubt had an immense effect on his peculiar audience — if there 
was " no free thought illustrated, none exercised by the admirable 
apologists of Christianity, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Laetantius, 
Augustine, Chrysostum, Cyprian, Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, 
Christopher Columbus, compared with whom it is no disparage- 
ment to Mr. Vickers to say that he is 'a mental pigmy?" I 
should like, in passing, to recall to the Archbishop's memory an 
old Latin proverb, which it would be well for him and his Church 
to lay to heart : "Pygmcei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi 
gigantes mdent" (Pigmies standing on the shoulders of giants 
see further than the giants themselves.) Now, in the first place, 
it is somewhat remarkable that he does not mention a single 
thinker who lived between the middle of the fifth century and 
the beginning of the thirteenth, so that there is a period of nearly 
eight centuries which seems to be pretty " dark " for him also. 
If the Archbishop had wanted to illustrate the ecclesiastical learn- 
ing of this period, he could not have done it better than by re- 



20 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



ferring to productions of a somewhat later date. The times were 
somewhat changed, but then, you know, the Church never changes. 
It would have been much to the point had he but named those 
profound thinkers — those immaculate logicians and poets — Scher- 
schleiferius, Dollenkopfius, Eitelnarrabianus, Mistladeriusand com- 
pany — who unfolded their heavenly wisdom (a little mixed up, it 
is true, with earthly sensuality and debauchery) in the Epistolw 
ObsQurorum Virorum. 

Columbus and Copernicus are the only ones he mentions who 
belong to the modern world, and I have yet to learn that these 
are counted among the " apologists of Christianity." It was cer- 
tainly a slip of the tongue which allowed these two names to pass 
the lips of the Archbishop ; he probably meant to say Torque- 
mada and Loyola, who, although not strictly apologists of Christ- 
ianity, are much better examples of his kind of free thought than 
Columbus and Copernicus. 

Bat to what extent were the others representatives of free 
thought ? Time will not permit me to characterize them all, but 
we will take a few examples. First of all, Tertullian — a fine 
specimen of a free thinker. In his book against the heretics, he 
bellows forth : " Admit that they are not enemies of the truth, 
what have we to do with men who confess that they are still in- 
vestigating ? Since they are still seeking, they are not in posses- 
sion of any thing ; and as they do not possess any thing, they do 
not believe — are not Christians. Nobis curiositate ojncs non est 
post Christum, nee inquisitione post evangelium. Cum credimus, 
nihil desideramus ultra credere. (After Christ, we have no need 
to desire to know any tiling further — after the gospel, no need 
of inquiry. Since we believe, we need nothing beyond belief.) 
What have Athens and Jerusalem, what the Academy and the 
Church, in common ? " This same Tertullian was one of the most 
blatant, foul-moathed and narrow-minded of all the so-called 
Fathers — the man who took a swinish pleasure in defiling the most 
sacred names of antiquity, as the Romish Church has always 
defiled those who disagreed with her. It is, furthermore, not 
unessential to mention, before leaving him, that he belonged to a 
sect which was regarded as heretical and excommunicated by the 
main body of Christians, and that he never recognized the suprem- 
acy of the Roman bishop. 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 21 



This brings me to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who, however 
little of a free thinker he was, was far too free, in one respect, 
for Rome. He was the great champion of the unlimited power 
of each bishop in his own diocese, but a bitter opponent of Ro- 
man supremacy. He recognized no episcopus episcoporum, and so 
Bishop Stephen, of Rome, cut off all intercourse with him, and he 
died in virtual excommunication. 

And now for Saint Augustine. I take it for granted that when- 
ever a man is capable of free thought and impartial investigation, 
he is not only willing to accord it to others, but desirous of doing 
so. And yet it is to this man, above all others, to whom the 
Romish Church looks for her authority to punish heretics. Em- 
bittered by his controversies with the Donatists, he was the first 
man in the Occident to elaborate a theory for compulsion in re- 
ligious matters, for the persecution of heretics. All later defend- 
ers of the right of the Church to use violence, do little more than 
repeat his arguments. And Thomas Aquinas is one of these. 
You would search in vain for the least vestige of independent 
thought in the whole three and twenty folios of his writings. 
His mission was to reduce the dogmas of the Church to the forms 
of the Aristotelian philosophy, so far as this philosophy was then 
understood. For the development of free thought there was not 
an inch of space. The outlines of the picture were all there; 
it was his office to put on the Aristotelic colors. But just as lit- 
tle liberty of thought as he himself enjoyed, just so much, and no 
more, he was willing to tolerate in others. " Heretics," said the 
Church, "are the sons of Satan, and, therefore, it is nothing but 
right that even in this life they should participate in the lot of 
their father — burn, as he does." And Thomas Aquinas, in his 
" Summa Theologica," the great text-book of Roman Catholic the- 
ology, even at the present day, opposes to all Biblical reasons for 
toleration or milder treatment, the words of the Apostle that a 
heretic should be rejected after the second admonition, to which 
words he adds the commentary that, the best ivay of rejecting 
him is to execute him, and, furthermore, that in the case of apos- 
tates not even an admonition is necessary ; these ought to be burned 
without further ceremony. [Summa, II. 2, q. 11, arts. 3 and 4.] 
Are not these men — with whose high-sounding names the Arch- 



22 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



bishop filled his mouth so full — are they not grand representa- 
tives of free thought? 

But let us return for a moment to Columbus and Copernicus, 
and ask what the " Holy Catholic Church " was doing while they 
were making their immortal discoveries in heaven and earth. 
Their lives cover a period of nearly a century — from about the 
middle of the fifteenth to the middle of the sixteenth. What a 
grand age it was ; the age in which Bartholomseus Diaz, Vasco 
de Gama, the Cabots, Vespucci, and Magellan discovered the 
earth ; the age when the fugitive Greeks brought the knowledge 
of the classics to Italy; when the Humanists, Reuchlin, Erasmus, 
Hutten, and their compeers, began to combat the ignorance and 
stupidity of the monks, and Guttenberg lent them his powerful 
aid; the age in which Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, 
Michael Angelo, achieved their glorious works ; the age of Luther 
and Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin ; in which they dealt such 
sturdy blows at an equally powerful and unscrupulous hierarchy. 
What was it with which the Romish Church was chiefly occupied 
as the sun was painting the dawn of this new day of history with 
such magnificent colors? Oh, she was trying her best to conjure 
back the night! She always loved darkness better than light. 
She was busy persecuting the Jews in Spain, whom she had 
forced to abjure their ancient faith, but still suspected of a secret 
allegiance to it. In a little over thirty years, ending with the 
year 1517, she had burned 12,200 persons alive, and punished 
nearly 200,000 others in various ways, either by torture, impris- 
onment, loss of property, or all put together. She was issuing 
bulls against witchcraft, and sending her mercenaries into Ger- 
many to burn men, women, and children by the thousand. She 
was selling indulgences to get money to build St. Peter's with, 
licenses to commit any sin whatever, and forgiveness for any that 
might have been committed — all for money. She was burning 
Savonarola for his plain speech against her wickedness, as she 
had already burned John Huss and Jerome of Prague. She was 
attempting to annihilate the Hussites, as she had already massa- 
cred the Albigenses. She was founding the order of the Jesuits, 
and perfecting its organization — an order in which, in the service 
of the Church, men are reduced to machines, in which " obedience 
takes the place of every motive or affection that usually awakens 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 23 



men to activity; obedience, absolute and unconditional, without 
thought or question as to its object." 

Look, for a moment, at the Inquisition, which at this time was 
in its glory. What was its object, and what its method of pro- 
cedure? Its object was the suppression of heresy in every form. 
It was an outgrowth of the theory that the Pope is lord over 
both the souls and the bodies of men. Everywhere, where the 
Inquisition began its work, the Papal law was proclaimed, accord- 
ing to which every one was bound, under pain of excommunica- 
tion, to reveal, within a definite period, every thing he knew of 
heretics or heretical actions. This obligation was universal and 
unlimited : no human tie, neither marriage nor blood relationship, 
nor the duty of gratitude, afforded release. Sons and daughters 
were bound in conscience to denounce their own fathers and 
mothers, even if it were probable or certain that the rack and the 
stake would be their fate. He who failed to confess what he 
knew of others, was treated as a heretic himself. On the other 
hand, indulgences were granted to all who contributed to the 
seizure and punishment of heretics. He who acknowledged himself 
guilty and recanted, suffered severe and ignominious punishment, 
often imprisonment for life. He who remained firm to his convic- 
tions was delivered over to the secular arm, with the mocking rec- 
ommendation : ut quam clementissime et extra sanguinis effusionem 
puniretur (that the punishment be as merciful as possible, and 
without effusion of blood). This was the atrocious formula for 
burning alive. The civil power had no choice. Under pain of 
excommunication, the ecclesiastical verdict must be immediately 
carried into effect, and the victim burnt. Concerning the guilt 
or innocence of the condemned, the secular courts had nothing to 
say; their only office was that of the executioner. Even as late 
as the seventeenth century, one of the most distinguished doctors 
of canon law, Pignatelli, maintained that even if the secular au- 
thorities knew with certainty that a sentence was unjust, or ren- 
dered void by some flaw in the procedure, they must execute it, 
nevertheless. I have no heart to go further into the bloody record 
of this infernal institution. " Scarcely is it possible," exclaimed 
Antonio dei Pagliarici, " to be a Christian, and die quietly in one's 
bed." 

Freedom of thought, indeed ! Why, in the very year in which 



24 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



Copernicus' immortal work on the Revolutions of the Heavenly 
Bodies was printed (1543), Cardinal Caraffa decreed that " no book 
whatever, whether new or old, and whatever its contents, should 
for the future be printed without permission from the Inquisi- 
tors." And this stringent regulation was applied not only to 
publishers and booksellers, but even private persons were required 
to denounce all forbidden books, to exert their utmost power to 
effect the destruction of all that came to their knowledge. This 
gradually gave rise to the Index of Prohibited Books, of which 
Paul Sarpi said : " Never will a more effectual means be discov- 
ered of making dunces of men under the pretense of making them 
more pious." And here let me remind Archbishop Purcell, that it 
was not until the year 1835 that the work of Copernicus was re- 
moved from the index librorum prohibitorum. Since that time, I 
suppose the Romish Church allows the earth to turn on its axis 
and to revolve around the sun. 

With what brazen effrontery does the Archbishop, in the face 
of all the facts of history, say that " when men chose to use their 
freedom to err, the Church did not, and could not, hinder them." 
Does he think to gloss over the foul crimes of the Church by 
mentioning the names of half a dozen persons whom she did not 
burn ? ]No thanks to her, methinks, that she did not burn Luther, 
and the rest of them. 

It is the simple fact of history, without any exaggeration what- 
ever, that the Romish Church has never, during the whole period 
of her history, tolerated free thought. Philosophy and science, 
in any true sense of the terms, are an abomination to her. I 
need only mention the names of Abelard, Roger Bacon, Galileo, 
Giordano Bruno, Fenelon, Lamennais, Hermes, Guenther, Renan, 
to show you that through " the long lapse of ages," the Church 
does not change in this respect. 

Let me quote to you the words of the last philosophic victim 
to Romish intolerance. Frohschammer, Roman Catholic Professor 
of Philosophy at the University of Munich, whose books and 
lectures have recently been interdicted, says : " The position of a 
Catholic author, who is in earnest with his science, does not 
merely rehash the same old story, but has an eye to the needs of 
the age, is really pitiable. He is treated as an innovator, de- 
nounced, and, where it is possible, condemned. The work of his 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 25 



inspiration and toil is branded as anti-ecclesiastical, and his fellow- 
believers are forbidden, under pains and punishments, to read it. 
It is not to be wondered at, when, in view of the proceedings of 
the Congregation of the Index, our opponents tells us in bitter 
mockery that Catholic men of learning have nothing to do but 
play the part of dumb dogs, and are fit for nothing but to be the 
passive instruments of outward authority. That, under such cir- 
cumstances, progress in science can not be thought of, is a matter 
of course." And yet Professor Frohschammer never dreamed of 
departing from the Catholic faith. Ah, yes, this is the " contra- 
diction" which will yet break the Catholic Church in pieces. 

Either Archbishop Purcell has learned his lesson very badly, 
or he consciously uttered last Sunday what he knew to be untrue. 
This is the only alternative. As the former supposition is the 
most charitable, I would respectfully recommend him to study 
carefully the encyclical letter of the Pope, with its syllabus of 
modern errors, bearing the date of December 8, 1864. 

Here he will find himself suddenly transferred to the darkest 
period of the middle ages. He will find that all our modern 
civilization is one stupendous heresy. He will find that Rome 
does not even pretend to tolerate free thought, or "free any thing" 
Does any one imagine that he is free to embrace and profess any 
religion which, by the light of reason, he believes to be true, or 
that there is any hope whatever of salvation for those who are 
not found within the Romish Church ? Does he believe that in 
our day it is no longer expedient for the State to recognize Roman 
Catholicism as the one true religion, to the exclusion of all other 
forms of worship; that the Church has no right to employ force; 
that, in a conflict between Church and State, the law of the State 
is to decide, or that Church and State ought in any way to be 
separated ? Does he think that the direction of the public schools 
in a Christian land must be subject to the State, and that the 
Roman Catholic Church has no right to interfere with the stud- 
ies, discipline, or choice of teachers? Does he imagine that he 
has a right to circulate the Bible, or that Protestantism is only 
a different form of the one true Christian religion, and that a 
Protestant is as well-pleasing to God as a Catholic? Does he 
think that the method and principles according to which the old 
scholastic Doctors elaborated the theology of the Church, are 



26 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



wholly inadequate to the needs of our time, or to the progress of 
science ? Does he think that philosophy, or ethics, or civil laws 
can and may deviate from the authority of the Roman Catholic 
Church ? Or, last, but not least, does he believe that the Pope of 
Rome can and must reconcile himself to progress and liberalism ; 
in a word, conform to modern civilization ? Then he is a child 
of the devil, blind and wicked to the last degree ! For these are 
all damnable heresies, branded as such by the vicegerent of Christ, 
in the year of grace 1864.* 

Yes, my friends, thought is the one thing which the Catholic 
Church hates with a deadly hatred, as every institution must 
which imagines itself to be in the exclusive possession of the 
truth. And for this reason she is the most dangerous element in 
modern society. Wherever there is ignorance, mental and moral 
degradation, rottenness in the family or in the State, there she is 
a power, before which all the intelligence of the world may pause 
and tremble. She is impudent, unscrupulous, treacherous, and 
malignant to the last degree. Oh ! beware of her, beware ! 

And thou, dark spirit, with thy whole brood of night and hell, 
beware, beware ! Think not to extinguish the light from heaven, 
or to cover up the rising sun with scarlet robes or sable cassocks. 
After the Albigenses come the Hussites, and requite with bloody 
vengeance what their brothers suffered. After Huss and Ziska 
follow Luther, Hutten, the war of thirty years, the Huguenots, 
the stormers of the Bastile ; and after these the endless army of 
warriors for the light and the truth of God. 



*The above-mentioned heresies are translated literally from the authorized 
edition of the Encyclicae, of December 8, 1864. 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 27 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY TO REV. 
THOMAS YICICERS. 

[Published in the Catholic Telegraph, Oct. 16th, 1867.] 

" Desiring to be teachers of the law, not understanding either 
what they say, or whereof they affirm." (1 Tim. i: 7.) The 
sermon preached last Sunday, by Rev. Thomas Vickers, pur- 
porting to be a reply to the remarks of Archbishop Purcell, at 
the laying of the corner-stone of the Church of St. Rose, has been 
published in two, at least, of our city papers. It is a remarkable 
illustration of the truth of the words of St. Paul, at the head of 
the article. — That there were then, and are now, men " desiring 
to be teachers of the law, not understanding what they say, or of 
what they affirm." One of these is Rev. Thomas Vickers. 

Before passing to the proof, we must ask attention to the fact 
that Archbishop Purcell was not in this instance, any more than 
in sundry others, the aggressor. It is Mr. Vickers who calls the 
Church a rotten ecclesiastical institution; it is he who qualifies 
her missionaries as " prize-fighters," and who consigns herself to 
" rats and mice." If this be not " intellectual rowdyism," to use 
his elegant phraseology, we know not what deserves the name. 
And, as if this were not sufficient to show the reverend gentle- 
man's address in the use of a theological "shillalah, his want of 
education and breeding," he passes over, in the very exordium 
of his discourse, from the ecclesiastical to the political arena, 
and launches the anathema of " despotism" against the freemen of 
the good State of Ohio who succeeded in the last election. Is this, 
in the judgment of Rev. Mr. Vickers, their reward for vindicating 
the right to think for themselves? Ah ! ye one hundred and fifty 
thousand despots, beware ! This new inquisitor, this modern Tor- 
quemada, will put the screws to you. It is thus he illustrates his 
idea of free thinking ; it is thus that he hopes to' escape the charge 
of palpable contradiction ; it is thus that he seeks to distract the 
attention of his hearers from the point at issue between him and 



28 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



me. After this handsome dodge, the gentleman tells us that the 
old heroes of Greece and Rome, who passed a night — it was a long 
one of eight hundred years — in the monasteries, were no heroes at 
all, but only books, to which, he thus avows, the ignorant monks gave 
the " sanctuary " of an altar, and which, God bless them ! they trans- 
cribed hundreds of times, and handed to us, in the dawn of a better 
day, across the isthmus of the dark ages. Mr. Vickers, who, we be- 
lieve, thinks he is free to deny, and does deny, the Divinity, the di- 
vine and human nature, of Jesus Christ, next passes to irreverence 
and blasphemy, using language which no Christian and no gentle- 
man should use: "The new dogma," says he, " of the Immaculate 
Conception makes Jesus the cause of his own grandmother's having 
brought his mother into the world without due process of nature." 
This language plainly shows that Rev. Mr. Vickers " does not un- 
derstand that whereof he affirms." The doctrine of the Immacu- 
late Conception does not suppose, or teach, that Mary, the Mother 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, was brought into the world without due 
process of nature. On the contrary, it teaches that she was brought 
into the world as all other children are, with the exception that, as 
the Prophet Jeremiah and Saint John the Baptist, as the Holy Bible 
teaches, were sanctified in their mother's womb, so Mary was sanc- 
tified in the first moment of her conception, itself the result of the 
sacred process of nature. Now, dear Mr. Vickers, you do not be- 
lieve in original sin; you, therefore, believe that you were born 
immaculate! Do you, therefore, believe that you were brought 
into the world without due process of nature ? You have taken 
the liberty of asking me questions. Let me, for once, catechise 
you, and direct the attention of all the churches of Cincinnati to 
your answer. Do you believe that " Jesus " was brought into the 
world without what you call " due process of nature?" If you do 
not believe that he was, I would not waste time by noticing you 
a moment longer. I have no heart to reason with those who deny 
the Redeemer. They may associate with Voltaire, and Strauss, 
and Renan, with whom I leave them free to think they shall have 
congenial fellowship. The gentleman proves, by what he says of 
the so-called " Dark Ages," he is in the dark concerning them. I 
did not think it necessary to enumerate the bright lights that illu- 
minated the firmament of religion and letters during the long pe- 
riod from the sixth to the fourteenth century. I thought better of 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 29 



the gentleman's scholarship than to presume he had never heard 
of Hallam and Maitland, and I need not tell intelligent readers 
who they were, or what they have written of the mediaeval era. 

The Venerable Bede was born in 675. Alcuin, founder of the 
Palatine school, and, through it, of the University of Paris, the 
teacher and counselor of Charlemagne, was born in the eighth cen- 
tury. Alfred the Great in 874 ; St. Bernard in 925 ; St. Bona- 
ventura in 1221; Peter of Blois in the twelfth century; all of 
these, to whom may be added many other illustrious names, flour- 
ished in the " Dark Ages." And the Greek and Latin they un- 
derstood and wrote would shame but too many of the alumni of 
our modern universities. But if Mr. Vickers sincerely desires to 
estimate aright the light or darkness of the human mind from the 
sixth to the fourteenth century, let him stand, as we have lately 
done, under the lofty arches of the grand old Cathedrals of Stras- 
burg, of Paris, of Amiens, of Beauvais, of Chartres, of Milan, all 
built at that period, and ask himself who built them? Who com- 
posed those magnificent epics — those poems in stone — or, if his 
head become not giddy at such an elevation, let him ascend one of 
the lofty spires of those fine old minsters, and he will see further 
into his own ignorance than a "pigmy could have seen on the 
shoulders of a giant." He will also conclude that the sciences are 
sisters, and that architecture could not have created such wonders 
if those sisters had not stood beside her. After this eclaircissement 
the gentleman will understand why we did not "mention any 
thinker from the middle of the fifth to the beginning of the thir- 
teenth century." We could name many more than he has prob- 
ably ever heard of. 

The gentleman next quarrels with Tertullian, because, forsooth, 
he thought there was no further need to seek for saving faith 
after Christ and the Gospel. Now, this is precisely what we think. 
We believe Christ and the Gospel, and we claim not, for ourselves 
or others, the right to think or to believe any thing contrary to 
what they teach. Does Mr. Vickers? If he does, let him read 
the graphic description St. Paul gives (2 Tim. iii : 1) of those " who 
are always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the 
truth."* Christ gave his word, his religion, his holy law for our 

*Note — See the Discourse on page 43. T. V. 



30 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



guide. We can not put it under a bushel, and go about groping 
for something better. For this we have neither right nor freedom. 
Tertullian and all the Fathers thought so — so thinks the Catholic 
Church. But "Tertullian never recognized the supremacy of the 
Roman See." Let him read the book of his prescriptions, and he 
w^ll change his mind. In that book Tertullian challenges certain 
heretics to trace their origin from any of the apostles, and he then 
gives a list of the Roman Pontiffs — links in the golden chain of 
truth, from Peter and from Christ — saying, " let heretics pretend 
to any thing like this — confingant tale quid Hwretici." If Tertul- 
lian fell from the truth in his later years it was because he turned 
free thinker. The Church let him go his ways, but they were 
evil. St. Cyprian never differed in faith from the Roman Pon- 
tiff. See his admirable work de Unitate Ecclesioz, on the unity of 
the Church. See his letters to Pope St, Stephen in prison, for the 
faith. See the acts of his glorious martyrdom for the same faith. 
See what St. Augustine says of the "folx mariyrii" which pruned 
off his fault of resisting the Pope in the alleged necessity of rebap- 
tizing such as had been baptized by heretics, in which the Chris- 
tian world has since decided that Cyprian was wrong and the Pope 
right. And see, above all, a Protestant testimony, the four splen- 
did articles by Dr. JNevin, in the fourth volume of the Mercers- 
burg Review, for 1852. Do, please, Rev. sir, read those pages, 
they will do you good. 

St. Augustine. We referred to him as we had to Tertullian, 
Cyprian and others, not for their faith, or their opinions, their 
liberality or illiberality, as Mr. Vickers well knows, though he 
dexterously affects to ignore it, but as men of extraordinary genius 
and learning in a church which he falsely pretends did not allow 
men to think. But Augustine knew the law of the empire for 
the suppression of heresy ; and the excesses of Arians, Donatists, 
Circumcellions, which provoked them and made them necessary 
for the safety of property and life, for the very salvation of 
society ; and yet, while appealing to those laws, he remembered 
how he had once been a heretic himself, and he expressed the fol- 
lowing beautiful sentiments, which portray his true spirit : " Let 
those," says he, Ep. contra Fund, " treat you harshly who know 
not how hard it is to get rid of old prejudices. Let those treat 
you harshly who have not learned how very hard it is to purify 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 31 



the interior eye ai*d vender it capable of contemplating the sun 
of the divide truth. But as for us, we are far from this disposi- 
tion toward persons who are separated from us, not by errors of 
their own invention, but by being entangled in those of others. 
We are so far from this disposition that we pray God, that in 
refuting the false opinions of those whom you follow, not from 
malice, but imprudence, he* would bestow upon us that spirit of 
peace which feeds no other emotion than charity ; no other inter- 
est than that of Jesus Christ ; no other wish but for your salva- 
tion." 

St. Thomas Aquinas, like St. Augustine, in the fifth century, 
was aware of the excesses committed in the south of France by 
the Albigenses, the " poor men of Lyons," the Cathari, the Bul- 
gares, whom Moshyem and the Centuriators of Magdaburg, and 
McLane so justly denounced, and of the laws passed to restrain 
their violence. But in referring to the words put in his mouth, 
or under his pen, by Rev. Mr. Yickers, in loc cit I find them 
not. The chapter, as cited, is under my eyes as I write ; I shall 
show it to any one who chooses to see it. Aquinas does not say, 
"The best way to reject a heretic is to execute him." He does 
not say that apostates ought to be burned without further cere- 
mony. Let not Mr. Vickers trust to the easy erudition of second- 
hand citation. If he have not the " ipsissimi verba " of Aquinas 
before him, let him come to me or send his friends. I assure 
them not the slightest exhibition of the " odium-theologicum n in 
the interview, and I shall place in their hands the " Summa" 

Catholics have suffered from persecution for conscience' sake as 
much as non-Catholics. In Ireland the persecution has continued 
for upward of three hundred years to the present day. But enough 
has been said on this subject of persecution, and all the gross ex- 
aggerations of anti-Catholic writers in the various written and oral 
debates, and in our pastoral letters and lectures which are in the 
hands of all who care to read and be enlightened. The State, and 
not the Church, is to blame, as the celebrated Count d' Maistre has 
shown in his letters on the Spanish inquisition. The Popes re- 
monstrated in certain instances against the enforcement of those 
severe penal laws by the State. As Thomas Aquinas says, Ques- 
tio XL Art. III. Secunda Secundse : " Exparte autem Ecclesise 
est Misericordia ad errantium conversionem." The part of the 



32 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



Church is mercy unto the conversion of the erring." And in 
this there is no hypocrisy, any more than a jury is a hypocrite 
when it hands in a verdict of murder in the first degree, but 
appends to it a recommendation for mercy. 

The Jesuits — who have done more for science and true philoso- 
phy than they have done? — who have carried astronomical science 
further and higher than they have in these, our own days ? Not 
to speak of their professors of mathematics in Europe and China, 
who but a Jesuit has deserved and obtained the gold medal for 
astronomy in the present Paris Universal Exposition ? Shame on 
the men who know not these things, or, knowing, dare deny them. 
The Jesuits take no unconditional vows. They make no vow to 
obey in any thing contrary to the known laws of God. Hence, 
when they do not want to obey in what the law of God approves, 
the doors and windows are open and they may leave as Passaglia 
did in Rome and as others have done in Europe and America. 

Now, to show my good will and good temper, I shall answer 
my fortune-teller's questions — Vicker, in German, means fortune- 
teller — although I have answered them already in my pastoral on 
the encyclical and the syllabus of 1862 — and, if I mistake not, 
with the approval of the Cincinnati Gazette, which, I hope, as well 
as the Commercial, will publish what I write. 

1. There is no power, human or divine, that forces a man to 
believe a religion, or any thing else, against his own honest, en- 
lightened convictions. I would commit a heinous crime if I re- 
ceived Mr. Vickers into the Catholic Church, except he was first 
thoroughly convinced that it was true. And I would be guilty 
of an equally heinous crime if I let him continue in it and adminis- 
tered to him its sacraments if he was convinced that it is not true. 

2. I do not believe that the Church has any right to employ 
force to coerce conscience. And it is a Pope who teaches me 
"non est reUgionis religionem cogere. Inauditum est impingere 
fidem cum bacido." It is no part of religion, says Pope Gregory, 
quoted by Father Arthur O'Leary, to a Spanish bishop, to force 
religion (on any one) or to drive faith into a man with a shillalah. 

3. I do not want a union of Church and State — I deprecate 
such a union. 

4. I prefer the condition of the Church in these United States 
to its condition in Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Bavaria. 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 33 

5. I do imagine, and I know that I have a right to circulate 
the Bible; and one of my first acts on reaching Cincinnati, per- 
haps before Mr. Vickers was born — I do not know his age — was 
to publish a " Yotum pro pace," to put at rest forever, if I could, 
the stale slander that the Catholic Church was opposed to the 
circulation of the Holy Scriptures. I offered to subscribe fifty 
dollars and join the Bible Society, and place a copy of the true 
Bible — Douey version — in every Catholic house, but the Bible 
Society declined accepting the liberal proposition. 

6. I believe that the Pope has no need to reconcile himself to 
progress or true Christian evangelical liberalism, for he was 
never, and is not now, opposed to either. 

7. I do not believe that philosophy, ethics or civil law can 
deviate, without error, from the teaching of the Catholic Church. 
They may deviate from her authority, as they may deviate from 
and defy the authority of God, but, in doing so, they are not 
right. The philosophy that does this is unsound, the ethics im- 
moral, the laws unwise and unjust. 

I do not now for the first time give these answers to the fore- 
going questions; and in answering them, as I have done, I am 
not " a child of the devil, or blind and wicked to the last de- 
gree," as Mr. Vickers, to use his own vile language, is " impu- 
dent, unscrupulous, treacherous, malignant," enough to say I am. 
Deluded man! false teacher! I pity him, forgive him, and pray 
for his conversion ! 

3 J. B. PuRCELL, 

Archbishop of Cincinnati. 



34 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



REPLY OF REV. THOMAS TICKERS TO ARCH- 
BISHOP PUR CELL. 

[Published in the Cincinnati Gazette October 26th, and in the Cincinnati 
Commercial October 27, 1867.] 

Having just returned to the city, after an absence of a week, 
I find that Archbishop Purcell has again attacked me, and in a 
manner even more characteristic of the Romish Church than in 
the first instance. I am not at all surprised that he now wishes 
to make it appear that he was not the aggressor. But I have no 
apprehension that any fair-minded man who read the wholly im- 
personal remarks which I made at the laying of the corner-stone 
of St. John's Church, and also the coarse personal attack which 
the Archbishop made upon me, in consequence thereof, will be 
deceived for a moment as to the real state of the case. Nor do 
I think that any man of common sense will be likely to be mis- 
led by that fine stroke of archiepiscopal dialectics in which he tries 
to make it appear that I am opposed to " the freemen of the good 
State of Ohio " thinking for themselves and acting on their own 
thought. Is it any infraction of their " right to think for them- 
selves " that I think differently, and say so? The manner in 
which the Romish Church, through such minions as Torquemada, 
" put the screws " to those who differed from her was somewhat 
different, I take it. Was it not, most reverend sir, to use your 
own elegant language, a " handsome dodge " to confound the 
two? 

The Immaculate Conception. — What I said of the dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception was simply intended to show that, 
in regard to the Greek and Roman philosophers, etc., the Arch- 
bishop either did not understand what I meant, or hac^ committed 
the hysteron proteron — the logical and chronological blunder of 
supposing them to have been educated by men who lived ages 
after them — just as the new dogma supposes Mary herself to 
have been conceived without sin on account of the merits of a 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 35 



son she was to bear in the future (''intuitu meritorum CJiristi 
Jesu"). If the Archbishop means to assert that being conceived 
without sin is something not outside of the " due process of na- 
ture/' then I am at a loss to know why he makes such a fuss 
about it. 

The Nature of Jesus. — The Archbishop wishes to catechise 
me, and directs " the attention of all the churches of Cincinnati" 
to my answer. Well, I have no objection. If I understand his 
question, he means to ask me whether I believe that Jesus " was 
brought into the world as all other children are ?" I answer, Yes. 
Jesus was a man, and, as such, he is the dearest possession of hu- 
manity. The " Christ " is a theological fiction. Mankind needs 
no such Redeemer as the Church has fabricated. This is my 
honest and sacred conviction ; and I respectfully submit to the 
Archbishop and to the public, that when on this ground he de- 
clines all further intercourse with me, he is only furnishing vol- 
untary proof of my original thesis, viz. : That the Church never 
tolerates any body who differs from her ; that free thought (which 
means nothing, without the liberty to express it) is an abomin- 
ation to her. 

The Point at Issue. — And it is this thesis of which I wish 
to remind the Archbishop. It was the assertion that the Church 
had never tolerated free thought, which he attempted, in his first 
animadversion, to prove untrue, and for this express purpose he 
quoted the array of names so fatal to his argument. He referred 
to them not merely " as men of extraordinary genius and learn- 
ing," as he now pretends, but as illustrations of free thought 
within the pale of the Church. Of course, it was a sad fact for 
the Archbishop that, on examination, not one of them answered 
to his description ; that those of them who took the liberty of 
thinking for themselves lost favor with the Church, and those who 
retained her favor, so far from being illustrations, were the bitter 
opponents of free thought. Stick to the point at issue, if you 
please. 

Dark Ages and Cathedrals. — I am happy to inform the 
Archbishop that I am not dependent for my knowledge of mediaeval 
history and literature on either Hallam or Maitland, although I am 
not ignorant of what they have written. But to what purpose is 
the new list of names with which he favors us ? Was free thought 



36 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



better " illustrated" and more fully " exercised " by Bede, Alcuin, 
Alfred the Great, St. Bernard, Bonaventura, and Peter of Blois, 
than by the eight persons he first mentioned ? This is the point. 
Let him have done with the " easy erudition" of looking into 
Hallam or Maitland, and culling out a few high-sounding names 
in order to impose upon the unlearned. Furthermore, there is 
certainly no objection to the Archbishop's making it known to 
the community that he has recently stood under the arches of cer- 
tain ancient cathedrals ; but the public will doubtless be at a loss 
to know what that fact, or what the cathedrals any way have to 
do with the subject under discussion. Do the six cathedrals he 
mentions, any more than the six new names he has brought for- 
ward, prove that the Church tolerates free thought? What has 
the sisterhood of the sciences to do with the building of cathedrals ? 
Keep to the point, if you please. 

Tertulliax. — The Archbishop admits, substantially, what I 
asserted in regard to Tertullian, except on one point. I asserted 
that " he never recognized the supremacy of the Roman Bishop." 
The Archbishop tells me to read " the book of his prescriptions," 
and I shall change my mind. Xow, I am not, in this instance, 
going to doubt either the honesty or the scholarship of the Arch- 
bishop, (I shall come to a more glaring case by and by,) but 
simply to state facts. Xot only does Tertullian, in his book De 
jwdicitia, use the most contemptuous language concerning the 
Roman Bishop, but there is not in the whole book De prcescrip- 
tionibus hcereticorum (to which the Archbishop refers) a single 
word, which, taken in the connection in which it occurs, even 
looks like acknowledging the Roman supremacy; while, on the 
other hand, there are plenty of passages which show conclusively 
that he never dreamed of acknowledging it. So much for Ter- 
tullian. 

Cyprian. — The Archbishop says Cyprian " never differed in 
faith from the Roman Pontiff." Now, if he means by the word 
" Pontiff" any thing more than " Bishop," it is perfectly clear 
that nobody could differ from him in any thing, for, in Cypri- 
an's time, there was no such thing as a Roman Pontiff; that was a 
later growth. But I never said that Cyprian differed "in faith" 
from the Roman Bishop. I simply said that Stephen excom- 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 37 



municated him for venturing to have and express an opinion dif- 
ferent from his own. 

And I now say that the result of the controversy on the valid- 
ity of baptism by heretics, proved not only that Cyprian did not 
recognize the supremacy of Rome, but that the whole African 
Church and all the Asiatic bishops resisted the arrogance of Ste- 
phen. There is still extant a letter to Cyprian, written in the 
name of the Asiatic bishops by Firmilian, Bishop of Csesarea, in 
which he can scarcely find language forcible enough to express 
his contempt for the Roman authority. The man whom the 
Archbishop calls " Pope St. Stephen/' Firmilian (his brother 
bishop) compares to Judas ; speaks of his " audacity and inso- 
lence ;" says he is justly indignant at his open and manifest stu- 
pidity, [juste indignor ad hanc tarn apertam et manifestam Stephani 
stultitiam,) and calls him the slanderer of the blessed apostles 
Peter and Paul (infamans Petrum et Paulum beatos Apostolos.) It 
will be seen from the following passage in what light the assumed 
power of the Roman Bishop to excommunicate other bishops was 
regarded in those days : " What grievous sin hast thou committed 
in separating thyself from so many flocks ! Thou hast cut off 
thyself; be not deceived, for he is truly a schismatic who has 
made himself an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical 
unity. For while imagining that thou hast excommunicated all 
others, thou hast, in reality, excommunicated thyself alone." This 
I translate literally from the original, and beg the reader to re- 
member that the words are addressed to " Pope St. Stephen." 
Perhaps the Archbishop may not consider Firmilian as good au- 
thority as Rev. Dr. Nevin. 

Augustine. — I asserted that Augustine was the first of the 
Fathers to elaborate a theory for compulsion and persecution in 
matters of religion, and that he is to-day the great authority to 
which the Romish Church looks for her right to punish heretics. 
My opponent does not, and can not, with truth, deny this; but he 
seeks to evade it by putting the character of Augustine in a false 
light. Now, either Archbishop Purcell knows that the "Liber contra 
epistolam 31anichccl, quam dicunt fundament i," (which is the mean- 
ing of his bungling citation, " Ep. contra Fund" — he either knows 
that this book, from which he makes his garbled extract, was 
written long before the Donatist controversy, during which (as I 



38 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



stated) Augustine elaborated his brutal theory of compulsion and 
persecution from the text Luke xiv: 23; and, therefore, that the 
book proves nothing except that Augustine's originally mild dis- 
position toward heretics became bitter and vindictive in his later 
years, or my opponent is not aware of this simple fact of history. 
In the one case, he has knowledge of a fact which he tries to 
conceal from his readers ; in the other, his ignorance proves that 
he has no claim to be heard in the matter. Which horn of the 
dilemma will the Archbishop take ? Will he sacrifice his schol- 
arship or his honesty? And now for 

Thomas Aquinas. — Here I must confess that, when I read the 
Archbishop's paragraph, I could scarcely believe my senses. I 
had asserted that Aquinas was one of the defenders of the right 
of the Church to use violence against heretics ; that he advocated 
putting them to death " after the first and second admonition," 
and taught that apostates were to be executed without further cer- 
emony. I did not pretend to give the exact words ; I gave the 
sense, and quoted the paragraphs of the " Summa," in which this 
doctrine is contained, so that whoever desired, and had the oppor- 
tunity, could refer to them, and verify my statement. Now the 
Archbishop comes and seeks to give the public the impression that 
I relied on the " easy erudition of a second-hand citation," did 
not know what I was talking about, and that Aquinas had never 
said any such thing. He says he has " the chapter as cited under 
his eyes as he writes," and there is no such thing there. What 
am I to conclude ? That, although having the book before him, 
he does not understand the language in which it is written ? * Or, 
that he has the book, can read it, but wishes to deceive his readers 
as to its contents ? He knew very well that no one of them would 
come to him to see it. Why did he not print the paragraphs in 
question, with a correct translation, so that his readers could judge 
for themselves? He was writing for a paper which bears his 
name as chief editor, over which he has complete control — a paper 
expressly devoted to the interest of the Romish Church — and was 
not, therefore, cramped for room. Why did he not do it? He 
dared not. He knew that, if he did, his case was irrecoverably 
lost. Ah, yes, dear Archbishop, I also have the " ipsissima verba " 
before me as I write ; and I hope you will not regard it as an 
" exhibition of the odium theologicum" if I print them with a 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 



39 



translation. The following passages are found in the Summa, 
Migne's (Catholic) edition, as correctly cited in my sermon. 
(Summce Secunda Secundce, Qucest. XL, Art. Ill, IV.) 

Article III is headed : Utrum kceretici sint tolerandi. (Whether 
heretics are to be tolerated ?) The method of Aquinas is first to 
state and meet objections, and then to develop his own opinion. 
Here he first cites various passages from the New Testament (2 
Tim. ii: 24-26; 1 Cor. xi : 19; Matt, xiii— the parable of the 
tares) in favor of the opinion that heretics ought to be tolerated. 
To all these he opposes the passage, Tit. iii : 10, 11: "A man 
that is an heretic, reject/' etc., and then uses the following words : 



Respondeo dicendum quod circa hce- 
reticos duo sunt consideranda : unum 
quidem ex parte ipsorum : aliud vero ex 
parte Ecclesia. Ex parte quidem ip- 
sorum est peccatum, per quod merue- 
runt non solum ab Ecclesia per excom- 
municationem separari, sed etiam per 

MORTEM A MUNDO EXCLUDI. MultO enim 

gravius est corrumpere fidem, per quam 
est animxz vita, quam falsare pecuniam, 
per quam temporali vita subvenitur. 
Unde si falsarii pecuniae vel alii male- 
factores statim per smculares principes 
juste morti traduntur, multo magis hje- 

RETICI STATIM EX QUO DE H^RESI CON- 
VINCUNTUR, POSSUNT NON SOLUM EX- 
COMMUNICARI, SED ET JUSTE OCCIDI. 



Ex parte autem Ecclesia est miseri- 
cordia ad errantium conversionem ; et 
ideo non statim condemnat, sed post 
primam et secundam correptionem, ut 
Apostolus docet; postmodum vero si ad- 
huc pertinax inveniatur, Ecclesia de 
ejus conversione non sperans, aliorum 
saluti providet, eum ab Ecclesia sepa- 
rando per excommunicationis senten- 
tiam; et ulterius relinquit eum judicio 
saculari a mundo exterminandum. 



translation. 

I reply that, in regard to heretics, 
there are two things to be considered : 
one, indeed, concerns themselves, but 
the other concerns the Church. For 
their part, they have committed a sin, 
on account of which they not only de- 
serve to be severed from the Church, 
by excommunication, but to be removed 
from the world by death. For it is a 
more grievous offense to corrupt the 
faith, which is the life of the soul, than 
to counterfeit money, which only helps 
sustain the life of the body. Hence, 
if counterfeiters of money, or other 
malefactors, are justly put straightway 
to death, by the secular authorities, 
much more may heretics, the instant they 
are convicted of heresy, not only be ex- 
communicated, but justly killed. 

[Now follow the words: "The part 
of the Church is mercy to the erring," 
which Archbishop Purcell dishonestly 
tears out of their connection, in order 
to blind his readers.] 

But the part of the Church is mercy 
to the erring; and, therefore, she does 
not immediately condemn, but " after 
the first and second admonition," as 
the Apostle teaches; but afterward, if 
he still be found unyielding, the 
Church, having no hope of his con- 
version, cares for the salvation of 
others by severing him from the 
Church, by the sentence of excommu- 
nication, and finally delivers him over 
to the secular tribunal to be extermi- 
nated from the world by death. 



40 



THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



The following is the heading of Art. IV : TJtrum revertentes ab 
hceresi sint ab Ecclesia recipiendi (Whether those who renounce 
their heresy are to be received by the Church?) Aquinas fol- 
lows the same method here; first stating the reasons of the oppo- 
site side, and then refuting them. His own conclusion is con- 
tained in the following extract: 



ORIGINAL. 

Et ideo Ecclesia primo quidem, rever- 
tentes ab hceresi, non solum recipit ad 
pcenitentiam, sed etiam conservat eos in 
vita, et interdum restituit eos dispensa- 
tive ad ecclesiasticas dignitates quas 
prius habebant, si videantur vere con- 
versi ; et hoc pro bono pads frequenter 
legitur esse factum. Sed quando recepti 
iterum relabuntur ; videtur esse signum 
inconstantice eorum circa fidem ; et ideo 
ulterius redeuntes recipiuntur quidem ad 
pcenitentiam, non tambn ijt liberen- 

TUR A SENTENTIA MORTIS. 



TRANSLATION. 

And. therefore, the Church, in the 
first instance, not only admits to pen- 
itence those who renounce their her- 
esy, but she also preserves their lives, 
and occasionally restores them, by dis- 
pensation, to their former ecclesiasti- 
cal honors, when they appear to be 
truly converted ; and we read that, for 
the sake of peace, this has often been 
done ; but when those who have been 
restored again relapse, it seems to be 
a sign of their inconstancy in faith ; 
and, therefore, such as afterward re- 
turn are indeed admitted to penitence, 
but not liberated from the sentence of 
death. 



" God/' continues Aquinas, " who is the searcher of hearts, 
knows whether those who return are sincere, and always receives 
them; but the Church can not imitate Him, for it is to be pre- 
sumed that those were not really converted, who, having been 
received, fell again, and, therefore, while she does not deny them 
the means of salvation, she refuses to save them from impending 
death " (periculo mortis eos non tuetur). 

Now, in this book, Thomas Aquinas is not writing a polemic 
treatise against "the Albigenses, the 'poor men of Lyons/ the 
Cathari, the Bulgares," or any other special class of heretics, but 
he is writing a body of Christian doctrine, universally true and 
universally applicable, and which the Romish Church to-day 
adopts as a standard. I dare not trust myself to characterize, in 
fitting language, this attempt of Archbishop Pnrcell to defend a 
bad cause by such reprehensible means. The public is now in 
possession of the evidence, and will give its own verdict. 

The Jesuits. — After the above exposition, our confidence in 
what the Archbishop says will not be very great. When he affirms 
that " the Jesuits take no unconditional vows ;" that " they make 
no vow to obey any thing contrary to the known laws of God ;" 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 



41 



I beg leave to refer him to the text of the Constitutions of the 
Society of Jesus, where he will find the following words : The 
candidate must regard the Superior as Christ the Lord, and 
must strive to acquire perfect resignation and denial of his own 
will and judgment, in all things conforming his will and judg- 
ment to that which the Superior wills and judges (Const., Par. 
Ill, Cap. I, Sec. 23). And also the following : "As for holy obe- 
dience, this virtue must be perfect in every point — in execution, 
in will, in intellect ; doing what is enjoined with all celerity, spir- 
itual joy, and perseverance; persuading ourself that every thing is 
just; suppressing every repugnant thought and judgment of one's 
own in a certain obedience ; . . . . and let every one per- 
suade himself that he who lives under obedience, should be moved 
and directed, under Divine Providence, by his Superior, just as if 
he were a corpse (perinde ae si cadaver esset), which allows itself 
to be moved and led in any direction." (Const., Par. VI, Cap. I, 
Sec. 1.) 

The Pope's Syllabus vs. The Archbishop's. — In conclu- 
sion, I can not but congratulate the Archbishop on his syllabus 
of answers to my questions. In some respects he is decidedly in 
advance of his master, the Pope ; nay, he is a rank heretic, and 
as such, is in great danger of being excommunicated, and perhaps 
burned. Let us see what the Pope says on the one hand, and the 
Archbishop on the other. I translate from the authorized edition 
of the Littero3 Encyclical, of 1864 : 



THE POPE. 

1. It is a damnable error to main- 
tain that "every man is free to em- 
brace and profess that religion which 
his reason leads him to believe to be 
true." (§111, XV.) 

2. It is a damnable error to main- 
tain that " the Church ought to be sep- 
arated from the State, and the State 
from the Church." (g VII, LV.) 

3. The Pope calls Bible Societies 
"pestilences," and says he has often 
condemned them in the severest lan- 
guage. (§IV.) 



THE AECHBISHOP. 



1. "There is no power, human or 
divine, that forces a man to believe a 
religion, or any thing else, against his 
own honest, enlightened convictions." 



2. " I do not want a union of Church 
and State — 1 deprecate such a union." 



3. The Archbishop says he proposed 
to join the Bible Society, and help cir- 
culate the Bible. 



I think the question will occur to every one, Which repre- 



42 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



sents the Romish Church, the Pope or the Archbishop of Cin- 
cinnati ? 

In conclusion, let me correct another misstatement of the Arch- 
bishop's. He asserted that I called him " impudent, unscrupulous, 
treacherous, malignant." I never did such a thing, as every one 
knows who read my sermon. I will not say what I think about 
it now. Facts speak for themselves. 

Thomas Yickees, 

Minister of the First Congregational Society. 






SERMON BY REV. THOMAS VICKERS. 43 



ALWAYS LEARNING. 

2 Tim. iii : 7. 

A. Sermon preached October 27, 1867, by Rev. Thomas VicJcers. 
Now first published. 



Always Leaening ! If there is any word which character- 
izes the modern age it is this. Was there ever an age so alive, so 
unwearying in the search for truth in every department of knowl- 
edge ? It mounts into the heavens, and makes voyages of discov- 
ery there ; dives down into the sea and unravels the secrets of the 
deep; penetrates into the bowels of the earth and robs her of her 
long-hid treasures. No obstacles discourage it, nothing is beyond 
its reach. It catches the sunbeam and compels it to reveal to us 
the constituent elements of our central orb with the same accuracy 
and certainty as if Ave could send a chemist, with retort, and cru- 
cible, and scales across the gulf of ninety million miles. It catches 
a few accents of a dying language and compels them to contribute 
to our knowledge of the genesis and history of thought and of the 
origin and development of man. It is capable of turning things, 
of no apparent importance, into engines of civilization ; nothing is 
too small or too insignificant to deserve its notice. 

Always learning ! This is the motto of every man who wishes 
to be abreast of the modern age. He is forever seeking to free 
himself from old errors and prejudices and to grasp the new and 
deeper truth. And it is just on this point that the age is at war 
with the Church. The Church claims to have arrived at the last 
results. She claims to be in possession of the absolute truth, to 
have reached the nonplus ultra, the ultima Thule of science. There 
is nothing beyond what she knows — she has nothing more to learn. 
Her dogmas are the crystallization of all possible science and phi- 
losophy, and the utmost that science and philosophy can do is to 
elucidate and explain them. Science and philosophy have no other 
mission but to be the handmaids of the Church. The moment 
they become conscious of a divine vocation in themselves, to search 



44 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



after the truth for the truth's sake, without regard to its agree- 
ment or disagreement with the recognized theology, that moment 
they become heretical, worthy only to be execrated, excommuni- 
cated, trodden under foot. Does Copernicus demonstrate a theory 
of the universe, which, carried to its logical conclusions, shows 
that all the dogmas of the Church rest upon a false basis, that they 
have no foothold in the reality of things — the Church puts his 
book into the Index as soon as she becomes aware of its tendency. 
Luckily the author had long been dead, or she w T ould have pat 
him into the fire, as she did Giordano Bruno, for teaching his doc- 
trines. Does Galileo show that the Church, instead of resting 
immovable in the center of the universe, on a rock, against which 
the gates of hell could not prevail, is swinging in the heavens, 
afloat, cut loose from her moorings, floundering in the immeasur- 
able void? She makes him go down upon his knees and swear 
that she still stands fast, and can not be moved j not satisfied with 
this, she imprisons him in his own house for an indefinite period, 
embitters his declining years, oppresses him in his blindness, and 
sends him in sorrow to the grave. And in the same spirit she 
treats every man who dares to utter sentiments or opinions adverse 
to her doctrines — in the same spirit, of course, she is obliged to 
modify the form of punishment according to the age with which 
she has to deal. 

I do not say this of the Romish Church alone, although her 
hatred and perfidy exceeds that of all others, as the ocean exceeds 
the drop of water I take from this glass and cast upon the floor. 
All churches have more or less of the same spirit, which is sure 
to manifest itself according to the numerical strength and the con- 
sequent amount of secular influence and power of the particular 
sect. The reason the Roman Catholic Church does not burn men 
for an opinion to-day, as she did formerly, is because the secular 
power has emancipated itself from her tyrannical rule ; because at 
least a part of the ignorance, which made the people subject to her, 
has been dispelled ; because, in spite of all her efforts to prevent 
it, the torch of learning has been handed from one to another until 
almost every man's candle bums brightly enough for him to dis- 
tinguish the grinning devil behind her sanctimonious mask. 

Yes, it is the same spirit, the same love of darkness rather than 
light, which characterizes her now as before. She hates with bit- 
ter, unspeakable hatred the whole foundation on which modern 



SERMON BY REV. THOMAS VICKERS. 45 



society and modern civilization is built. She hates every move- 
ment for the enlightenment, the physical, moral, and intellectual 
welfare of the people. She scowls at every charity, at every insti- 
tution of learning which does not stand under her immediate con- 
trol. And a measure, at least, of the same feeling is in all the 
Protestant sects, latent or active. Not one of them but would 
like to get all the public charities, all the public institutions of 
learning, into its hands, that they might, in some way, serve the 
special ends of its special creed and ecclesiastical organization. 

And these are the great reasons why men who have the welfare 
of humanity at heart, rather than the success of institutions, hate 
the Church in all its forms. These are the reasons why the men 
of science hate her ; and that they do hate her is beyond all doubt. 
Look abroad over the republics of science, philosophy, and letters, 
and see how many in the first ranks of intellect are in any way 
identified with the Church and her interests — not one in a thou- 
sand. It is only empty, windy Romanticism and shallow dilet- 
tantism in science and letters, which now lends its service to the 
Church. Only the lesser lights shine in her firmament and swing 
in her orbit. It is only now and then that a mind of the first 
order falls, through some moral or intellectual catastrophe, to her 
level. It w f as Schelling in his dotage, who became an apologist 
for the absurdities of the popular theology. 

Is there any room for wonder at this state of things ? We have 
seen that the Church has nothing to offer to minds of the first 
class. She pretends to be in possession of the Truth, but she is 
really only in possession of the old clothes which the Truth has 
cast off. She has not a single dogma which modern science or 
philosophy does not contradict. Her notion of God is a false one, 
which no man of any philosophic culture can be satisfied with. 
Her notion of Nature is equally false, as every really scientific 
man knows. Her notion of Man is just as false as the others, as 
every physiologist and psychologist can testify. And her notion 
of the reciprocal relation and connection of these three is conse- 
quently little better than nonsense. And yet she holds her head 
as high as ever, and does not know that the whole edifice in which 
she dwells is rotten, and is already tottering about her ears. She 
is full of contempt for the world and its knowledge. She says to 
the man of science : " Oh, you are always searching and learning, 
racking your brain, digging and delving in the earth, staring and 



46 THE CHURCH *ND FREE THOUGHT. 



gaping at the heavens, but you are never able to come to the 
knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, 
so do you resist the truth which I offer you, O ye men of corrupt 
minds, reprobates concerning the faith ! " But the man of science 
says to the Church : " The truth is not a ready-made coat which 
a man can buy of the church tailor and put on without further 
trouble. It is not a garment which can be made for him any way. 
Each one must cultivate and weave ail the materials and make it 
himself according to his own measure and stature. The truth can 
not be crystallised into dogmas — it can not be made into pills, 
which one can procure of the church doctor, warranted to cure all 
the ills which human flesh is heir to." 

The history of the world is the progress of man through error 
to truth, through imperfection to perfection. It is an infinite, 
never-ending task. Were it possible for man ever, at any period 
in the rolling ages, to attain the ultimate truth, the ultimate per- 
fection, then the period of stagnation would begin, history would 
cease, there would be nothing to wish for, nothing to strive after, 
no aspiration, no energy, the life of the soul would be a living 
death — the impossible would be realized. 

Always learning, and, thank God, never able to exhaust the 
truth ! The great impersonal spirit of humanity, which is above 
and beyond all individualities, and yet present and manifest in 
every individual, is always pressing forward to new achievements 
and new knowledge. The old forms are continually passing 
away. Even when they seem to be most stable they are already 
trembling over the gulf of dissolution ; the feet of those who are 
to carry them out are already at the door. " Every thing is flux," 
said Heraclitus. Every form has destruction written on its brow. 
" Enduring as the hills " — yes, but the hills, too, crumble little by 
little away. 

Always learning ! " The worth of man," said Lessing, that 
noble searcher after truth, " lies not in the truth which he pos- 
sesses, or believes that he possesses, but in the honest endeavor 
which he puts forth to arrive at that truth ; for, not by the pos- 
session of, but by the search after truth, are his powers enlarged, 
wherein alone consists his ever-increasing perfection. Possession 
fosters content, indolence, and pride. 

" If God should hold enclosed in his right hand all truth, and 
in his left hand only the ever-active aspiration after truth, although 



SERMON BY REV. THOMAS VICKERS. 47 



■with the condition that I must always and forever err, I would 
turn with humility to his left hand and say, ' Father give me this ! 
for pure truth is for thee alone ! ' " 

" Not a truth has to art or to science been given 
But brows have ached for it, and souls toil'd and striven; 
And many have striven, and many have fail'd, 
And many died, slain by the truth they assail' d. 
But when Man hath tamed Nature, asserted his place 
And dominion, behold ! he is brought face to face 
With a new foe — himself ! 

* * * * #■ ■* 

Now 'tis Thought attacks Thought. And the dread battle-plain 
Of that war is the soul, now, herself. And again 
The Immortals take part in the battle ; and Heaven 
And Hell to the conflict their counsels have given. 
See ! stern Torquemada dooms Thought to expire ! 
Hark ! the psalm of the martyrs soars upward in fire ! 
Then the auto-da-fes are extinguished ; back roll 
Dense volumes of darkness; and, sovran, the soul 
Chants her paean, proclaiming to Earth Heaven's freedom. 
And who is it that comes with dyed garments from Edom ? 
His foot in the blood of the wine-press is wet, 
And that foot on the head of the serpent is set ! 
Oh, were nought gain'd beside from this conflict of Thought, 
Man, at least, in alliance with man hath been brought. 
The wide world owns no longer one master alone, 
And no more every nation is vassal to one. 
Now the strong need the weak, and the weak aid the strong; 
Gracious laws whereby Peace may her lifetime prolong 
Have been wrought out of wrath by the swords of mankind, 
And the shout of free nations rolls forth on the wind. 
May the sword then be sheatKd ? may the banner befurCd? 
And is Peace crown d forever, fair Queen of the world $ 
Nay, Peace holds the sword to establish her state, 
And the sentinel walks by the white temple gate, 
Lest the Lion, by night, to the Leopard should say, 
' Arise, Brother Leopard, and forth on the prey !' 
Still the watch-fire must burn, still the watchman must wake, 
And still force arms to keep what still force arms to take. 

And whether he fall 
Or whether he vanquish, still man, on the field 
Of lifes lasting war, may not rest on his shield, 
May not lean on his spear, till the arme'd Archangel 
Sound o'er him the trump of eart Its final evangel." 



48 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



REPLY OF ARCHBISHOP PURCELL. 

[Pulished as an editorial in the Catholic Telegraph, October 30, 1867.] 

"Thomas Vickeks, minister of the First Congregational So- 
ciety," — lie does not say where — occupies more than a column of 
the Cincinnati Gazette, of the 26th of October, in which, in the 
vain effort to extricate himself from the mire of his former 
flounderings, he sinks more irretrievably. 

In one of those efforts he endeavored to entertain the worship- 
pers in Hopkins' Hall with the irreverent information that " Je- 
sus, by an anticipated application of the merits of the atone- 
ment, made his grandmother bring his mother into the world 
without due process of nature." We argued, that if Mary, in 
virtue of her immaculate conception or exemption from original 
sin, which is the same thing, was born without due process of 
nature, then Mr. Vickers, who believes not in original sin, and 
who, therefore, believes that he was conceived immaculate — was 
brought into the world without due process of nature. To this 
inexorable " argumentum ad hominem" he has taken care, after a 
week's reflection, not to answer. Perhaps in his next he will 
tell the First Congregational Society how he came into the world 
at all, and how he came to be their minister. 

He also insists in the paper before us, that when he branded the 
freemen of Ohio "despots," he inflicted on them no censure, 
insinuated no reproach. Then why did he so brand them? 

When the gentleman says that " Christ is a theological fiction," 
and not God, we solemnly declare that such blasphemous free 
thinking is an abomination to the Church and to us, and should 
be such to every Christian ; at the same time that we would not 
for the world abridge Mr. Vickers of his freedom to think and 
to speak as he does to all who pay him for such thinking and 
such speaking! 

We said that thought is essentially free, that neither God nor 
the Church could enslave it. And this, we still contend, is true. 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 49 



Men could think and speak as they pleased, but when they 
thought and spoke what was wrong, the Church had the right to 
tell them so — as Mr. Yickers now tells the " Despots " of Ohio. 
Stick to the point, sir ! 

The gentleman returns to the " dark ages " to prove that they 
were dark, and that the Church made them dark — that she put an 
extinguisher on the human mind by not tolerating "free think- 
ing." Is not this the point, friend? Now, we could occupy all 
the columns of one number of the Gazette or Commercial with 
extracts from non-Catholic writers, leaving out Maitland and 
Hallam, to prove that they were ages of light and not of dark- 
ness, in the sense of Mr. Vickers, and that we are indebted to 
them for the greater measure of light that we enjoy. A Catho- 
lic Churchman he would not believe on this subject. Here is 
testimony to which he may not demur. It is that of a radical 
Unitarian left wing, viz., Ralph Waldo Emerson, in an oration 
delivered by him at Harvard College. 

" In modern Europe the Middle Ages were called the ( Dark 
Ages/ ten centuries, from the fifth to the fifteenth. Who dares 
to call them so now? They are seen to be the feet on which we 
walk, the eyes with which we see. They gave us decimal num- 
bers, gunpowder, glass, chemistry, and Gothic architecture, and 
their paintings — ever the delight and tuition of our age. Six 
centuries ago Roger Bacon explained the Procession of the Equi- 
noxes, and looking over the horizon from London to America, 
announced that ships could be constructed that could be driven 
more rapidly than a whole galley of rowers could drive them, 
and machines which could fly into the air like birds." 

"They also/' adds the author, or reporter of this oration, 
" gave us the discovery of America and the invention of the art 
of printing. The darkness of those times arises from our own 
want of information, not from the absence of intelligence that 
distinguished them. Human thought was never more active and 
never produced greater results in any period of the world." 

In some sense, as even Carlyle admits, see " The Hero and 
Poet," page 129, U. P. James, 1842: "This glorious Eliza- 
bethean era, with its Shakspeare as the outcome and flowerage of 
ail which had preceded it, is itself attributable to the Catholicism 
of the middle ages. The Christian faith, which was the theme 
4 



50 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



of Dante's song, had produced the practical life which Shaks- 
peare was to sing. For religion then, as it is now and always is, 
was the soul of practice- — the primary vital fact in men's life." 
Your flowerage, Mr. Vickers, and that of all who think like you, 
your flowerage, who forget what you owe to a Catholic ancestry, 
is— poppy. 

Mr. Vickers introduces a new name when he cites Firmilian. 
But in this he flounders in the mire again. For, if it were true 
that Firmilian used the coarse language in addressing the mar- 
tyred Pope St. Stephen, which Mr. Vickers quotes, it would 
only prove what we told him before, that de jure et de facto the 
Church could not, and did not interdict free thought. But if the 
gentleman reads the dissertation in 4°, written by Marcellinus 
Molkenbuhr, and printed in Munster, Westphalia, in 1790, he 
will find that the letter in question was falsely attributed to Fir- 
milian, and that it was, on the contrary, the production of an 
African Donatist of the fourth century. 

Tertullian eloquently defended the Catholic faith, and showed 
its purity maintained by Peter, whom Christ made the head of 
his Church on earth, and Peter's successors in the See of Rome ; 
and when, by undue harshness to the erring, lie forfeited charity, 
he became a Montanist, and then thought and wrote as freely as 
he pleased, de pudicitia, or any thing else. 

Augustine and Aquiuas knew the laws in force, in their respect- 
ive ages, against heresy, which the civil power, like the Scripture, 
classed with the most heinous crimes : " idolatry, enmities, quar- 
rels, dissensions, sects, envyings, murders, drunkenness — of which 
I foretell you that they who do such things shall not obtain the 
kingdom of God." (St. Paul's Ep. to the Gal., vs. 20, 21.) The 
very text of Aquinas, as quoted by Mr. Vickers, was quoted by 
Archbishop Purcell. The author of the Summa did say, as Mr. 
Vickers acknowledges, that the part of the Church was mercy, 
but that, when the heretic continued obstinate, she had nothing 
more to do in his case but leave him to the State — " Ulterius relin- 
quit eum judici seculari a mundo extemiincm&um." With this con- 
summation the Church had no more to do than she had to with 
Jehovah's laws against false religions under the old dispensation. 
In this she had no more to do in suppressing free thought than 
God had, when he uttered from Sinai : " Thou shalt not covet." 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 51 



In this the Archbishop suppressed nothing — had nothing to sup- 
press — had no need of reticence and concealed nothing. But he 
could scarcely believe his senses when Mr. Vickers, with the 
hope of helping his cause by horrifying his readers, spoke of 
flames and burning, not a word of which is to be found in the 
text which he pretends to quote so ingeniously from St. Thomas. 
But if, in a by-gone age, Aquinas, or any one else, a thousand 
times over, justified the punishment of death for heresy, it is 
no more than has been done almost in our own age " down 
East ;" and as, thank God ! the world has outgrown the policy and 
practice which we now so cordially condemn here in the United 
States, where Catholics were the first to proclaim liberty of con- 
science for all, it is with a bad grace, indeed, that an Unitarian 
rakes up the buried embers of the New England' witches, or the 
long-extinguished fires of scriptural or mediaeval persecutions for 
conscience' sake. 

In Archbishop Purcell's Pastoral on the Syllabus, in 1862, he 
used language similar to that of his answer to Mr. Vickers, and 
he has since stood in the near presence of His Holiness and of 
five hundred of his brother bishops, and has not been rebuked 
for his recorded sentiments and avowed convictions, by him or 
them. We Catholics know our religion, and have not to learn 
it from enemies, who, like the Pagan tyrant of old, dressed the 
Christians in the skins of wild beasts, and then set the dogs on 
them. 

It is disingenuous, dishonest in Mr. Vickers to take no notice 
of the answers given to his calumnious imputations. If it were 
another man than one appearing in the garb of a " minister/' 
we might be tempted to use a monosyllable when he says an in- 
dulgence is a pardon for past or a license for future sin — that the 
Catholic Church is opposed to the circulation of the Bible, or that 
the Jesuit's vow binds them to any thing contrary to the known 
law of God. In conclusion, as the gentleman can hardly open 
his mouth without making a misstatement, we tell him that Arch- 
bishop Purceli is not the editor of the Catholic Telegraph, what- 
ever control he may exercise over its columns. 

For the information of all who sincerely seek the truth on 
questions started by Rev. Mr. Vickers, who seems comfortably 
ignorant of the past, as if he had spent his life in a cave, or had 



52 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



slept an age, like Rip Van Winkle, we republish a portion of 
our Pastoral of 1862. 

It may be too much to ask the Cincinnati Gazette and Commer- 
cial to republish the following ; but we and many subscribers will 
be much gratified by its appearance in their columns also : 

Let us now look at the condemned propositions, and see if we 
can not assent to the justice, and wisdom, and necessity of their 
condemnation, with the same fullness of faith and the same con- 
viction of the understanding with which the first Christians re- 
ceived the Four Gospels, the early Fathers subscribed to the first 
four General Councils, and their children and successors in the 
faith, in these latter ages, the decisions of Trent and the creed 
of Pope Pius TV. 

We do not believe in the absurdity of Pantheism — that every 
thing in the universe is an integral part of God — and that there 
is no other, no personal God. We do not believe that every 
thing made itself and made every thing else. We believe that there 
is a personal God, who made all that exists ; that the hyena, the 
demon, the assassin is not any part of God, and if he were, we 
would not be any part of him. Therefore, with the Encyclical, 
we condemn Pantheism. 

We do not believe that the best form of society, and the exi- 
gencies of civil progress, absolutely require human society to be 
constituted and governed without any regard whatever to religion. 

We do not believe that, while God leaves all men free before 
the final judgment, to believe falsehood and do wrong, that he 
grants any man a right to believe error or to commit crime. We 
do not believe that, in this sense, liberty of conscience and of 
worship is the right of any man which should be proclaimed by 
law, and that citizens should have the right to all kinds of lib- 
erty, to be restrained by no law, ecclesiastical or civil, by which 
they may be enabled to manifest, openly and publicly, their ideas, 
by word of mouth, through the press, or any other means. The 
maxim that error may be left free to write or speak what it 
pleases, so long as truth is left free to combat it, has been illus- 
trated by the penalties incurred by those who dared recently to 
speak and write against the Union and the Constitution, and to 
recommend assassination and sympathize with assassins. 

We do not believe that the will of the people, manifested by 
what is called public opinion, or in any other way, constitutes 
the supreme law, independent of all divine and human right; or 
that, in the political order, accomplished facts, by the mere fact 
of their having been accomplished, have the force of right. He 
that, by chicanery, knavery, or force, robs me of houses, or lands, 
is as much a thief as he who steals my purse. Length of unjust 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 53 



possession confers no right, and the land and the money robber 
are equally bound to restitution of principal and interest. 

When we rise from the reading of Spellman's History of Sac- 
rilege in England, we do not believe that the suppression of the 
monasteries, the spoliation of shrines, the seizing of the rich do- 
mains into which drained swamps, reclaimed wastes, and cleared 
forests were changed by the toil of the monks, have been left 
wholly unpunished by divine justice even in this world, or that 
they will be more leniently dealt with in the next; and, there- 
fore, we can not believe, against the dictates of reason, justice, and 
humanity, that the Encyclical is wrong in denouncing the imita- 
tion of such sacrilege in Piedmont, Portugal, Spain, or any other 
country. 

We do not believe that " property is robbery ;" that a new di- 
vision of whatever a toiling man has earned during the week 
should be made with his lazy, drunken, gambling neighbor every 
Saturday night. 

We do not believe that civil law has a right to abolish the 
Sabbath, or the religious holiday ; that it has a right to grant di- 
vorces from the bond of marriage — that is, to do what Christ has 
forbidden, "separate those whom God has joined together." 

We do not believe, with socialists and communists, that fami- 
lies must be absorbed by the State; that parents have not the con- 
trol of their children's minds and morals, their education, except 
as given them by the civil law, which, by such usurpation, invades 
not only the dearest rights of parents, but the authority of God 
himself, delegated to these His representatives on earth. 

We do not believe that the clergy have ever been the enemies 
of the useful sciences of progress or of civilization, or that they 
should be deprived of all participation in the work of teaching 
and training the young. 

We do not believe that the laws of the Church do not bind 
the conscience if they are not promulgated by the civil power. 
On the contrary, as Ambrose, the great Archbishop of Milan, the 
immortal Athanasius, and the President of the First Council of 
Nice, said to contemporary kings : " The Church belongs to God, 
therefore, it should not be delivered up to Caesar. A good 
emperor is within the Church, not above it. Meddle not with 
ecclesiastical matters, nor dictate to us on such matters, but 
rather learn these things of us. To you God has committed the 
imperial sway; to us he has intrusted what appertains to the 
Church. You have no power, O Emperor, over incense and the 
sacred things." Hence, we do not believe that any earthly ruler 
has been made head of Christ's Church ; neither a Henry VIII, 
nor any of his successors ; neither a Bonaparte, nor a Victor 
Emanuel. Nor do we believe that that is a " Holy Synod " which 
professes that the Holy Ghost is sent to it in a dispatch from 



54 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



the autocrat of all the Russias, in the portfolio of a colonel of 
hussars ! 

We believe that the Church was founded by Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, to guide us in all truth ; that she is the ark of safety 
to all who will not perish ; that she is supreme in spirituals. 

We do not believe that all action of God upon man and the 
world is to be denied ; that human reason, without regard to God, 
is the arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil, and 
sufficient by its natural force to secure the welfare of men and 
nations ; that Christian faith is in opposition to human reason ; 
that the prophecies and miracles recorded in the sacred Scriptures 
are the fictions of poets; that one religion is as good as another, 
unless in the sense as some said that it is, and a great deal better; 
that we may entertain a well-founded hope that those who are in 
no manner in the true Church (not even in desire) may be saved. 

We do not believe that the abolition of the temporal powers, of 
which the apostolical See is possessed, would contribute to the 
liberty and prosperity of the Church. The possession of temporal 
power, of territory, is not essential to the exercise of the supreme 
spiritual prerogative, granted by Christ to His Vicar. But it is 
convenient, it is salutary, it is sanctioned by the experience of a 
thousand years; and the States of the Church, even before the 
spoliation of the Legations, were so small that they should never 
have tempted the cupidity of the sacrilegious invader. 

We do not believe that the Roman Pontiff can and ought to 
reconcile himself to, and agree with, progress, liberalism, and 
civilization, for he has never quarreled with true progress, true 
liberty, or Christian civilization, in the ranks of which he has 
been ever seen since the very origin of Christianity. 

We do not believe that the civil authority possesses power to 
decide in the matter of administering the Divine Sacraments, as 
to the disposition necessary for their reception. 

We do not believe that the savage is better than the Christian 
and civilized condition of society ; that naturalism is preferable to 
revelation ; or that reason and religion, both given us by the same 
Divine Author, can ever be antagonistic, the one to the other. 

We believe that, as God .forbade false worship among the Jews, 
while for special reasons they were isolated and kept separate from 
the other nations of the earth — the Gentiles — so the Pope, and 
every Christian, should wish that there were in the world no 
errors ; that we all may be " one " in faith, as the Savior prayed 
for us the night before he suffered. But, as nations and govern- 
ments are now constituted under the good providence of God, so 
does he accept them. Pius VII crowned the first Bonaparte, 
though he knew he had sworn to the constitution which gave 
liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship to France. 
The present glorious Pontiff, like so many of his predecessors, has 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 55 



issued his apostolic letters for the consecration of bishops who 
swear allegiance to governments which look with equal favor or 
indifference on the various forms of Christianity, or the oppugners 
thereof, so long as their conduct is conformable to the civil and the 
moral law. 

We do not believe that the Pope would allow conscience to be 
coerced; that he would allow an impenitent, unbelieving man to 
be constrained to receive baptism or the other sacraments ; or that 
he believes that God would look without indignation on the 
hypocritical or the compulsory homage of the human soul. On. 
the contrary, he acknowledges, with an ancient Father of the 
Church, "that it is an unheard of procedure to infuse faith into 
a man with a cudgel." He knows that there is such a thing as 
judicial blindness ; that there are unhealthy and unsound intel- 
lects — in a word, monsters in mind as well as in body; disbelievers 
in deity, in morality, in religion, and even in reason; and that 
such, as long as they outrage not the laws of society, are to be 
consigned to their folly. They are better out of the Church than 
in it. Hence, while the Pope and every honest man regrets that 
the " old chaos," the anarchy of intelligences, " should be made 
the type of true religion," he reproves not the memorable words 
of the mild Fenelon to King James : " Grant civil toleration, not 
as approving, as indifferent, but as permitting with patience 
whatever God permits, and in endeavoring to bring back men to 
the truth by moral suasion." 

Finally, we believe the Church was destined by Jesus Christ 
to accomplish its divine mission of preparing souls for heaven, 
under every form of government, and in every condition of human 
society. She condemns none where the laws are just, and im- 
partially administered. Where the laws are unjust, and rulers 
violate the written or the natural compact by which they claim 
to govern, she " interdicts not to her children patriotism." She 
asserts for them the inalienable right to raise both voice and hand 
to denounce oppression and overthrow the oppressor; but she 
does not encourage secret societies; she urges not to precipitate 
resolves, to revolution. She counsels prudence, forbearance, re- 
monstrance, patience. She forbids individuals to involve them- 
selves and their co-workers in irretrievable ruin by hasty, unwise, 
and impulsive action, which rivets chains, instead of breaking 
them; and makes burdens heavier, and the yoke more galling, 
when the few attempt what only the many can accomplish. 

Such do we conceive to be the teaching of the late Encyclical. 
Such the voice that calms the waves and stills the tempest of 
human passions, and such the hand that steers the bark freighted 
with its precious cargo of immortal souls to the secure haven of 
supreme happiness, for which this earthly state, no matter how 
arranged, is but the earthly preparation. 



56 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



PROTESTANTISM-ITS RISE AjYD PROGRESS. 

A Sermon in Commemoration of the 350th Anniversary of the Reformation, by 
liev. Thomas Tichers. First delivered in German in St. Rani's German 
Protestant Church, October 31st, and repeated, in its present form, before 
tlie First Congregational Society, November 3rd, 1867. 



On the 31st of October, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian 
monk and professor of Divinity at the University of Wittenberg, 
inaugurated what is known as the Protestant Keformation. It is 
in commemoration of this world-historic deed that I wish to 
speak to-day, in honor of the man in whom the hope of centuries 
culminated and was realized. Long before, there had been at- 
tempts at reform — but the almighty Church had crushed them 
every one — Arnold of Brescia, the "Waldenses, Wycliffe, Huss, 
Jerome of Prague, Savonarola, seemed to have raised their voices 
utterly in vain against the numberless abuses in ecclesiastical doc- 
trine and practice. Hitherto the Church had been sure of her 
revenge. She had annihilated all opposition. What could this 
one insignificant monk expect to accomplish? Please God, he 
was bound to try to accomplish something, if but little. His 
purpose, at first, was not very far-reaching. For, at great crises 
in the world's history, God keeps his own counsel ; lie rarely 
gives his chosen instruments even a presentiment of the mighty 
issues which are often wrapped up in siugle initiatory actions. 
They see but a little way; the great future is below the horizon. 
Otherwise, how would they dare take such awful responsibility 
upon their shoulders? How would they dare stand up single- 
handed to divide the ages? So it was at first with Luther. He 
little knew what a work he was beginning when he nailed his 
theses against indulgences on the church door at Wittenberg. 
ISTothing was further from his thought than to be the author of a 
new schism in the Church he so truly loved. His only wish was 
to cleanse her from one of her darkest stains. 



PROTESTANTISM— ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 57 



Pope Leo X wanted money to finish St. Peter's at Rome, and 
so he sent his mercenaries into Germany to sell indulgences. And 
to what vile measures they resorted in order to sell them; what 
disgusting and blasphemous promises they made; how they cor- 
rupted the hearts and undermined the morals of the people. " I 
would not exchange/' said Tetzel, the shameless hawker of these 
Papal letters of absolution appointed for Saxony, " I would not 
exchange my privileges against those which St. Peter has in 
heaven ; for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than the 
apostle by his sermons. Whatever crime one may have committed, 
even though he had violated the mother of God, let him pay well 
and he will receive pardon. Likewise the sins which you may be 
disposed to commit in future, may be atoned for beforehand." 

" When any one drops a penny into the box for a soul in pur- 
gatory, the moment the money chinks in the chest the soul flies 
up to heaven." 

Luther's whole soul revolted against such diabolical wicked- 
ness, and he resolved to enter the lists against this " worthy serv- 
ant of the Pope and the devil," as he afterward called him. And 
so on the eve of All Saints', 1517, he published his celebrated 
theses, declaring that the Pope has no power to remit any other 
penalty than such as he himself, in conformity with the canons, 
has imposed; that God alone has the power to remit sins; that 
every Christian who feels a true repentance for his sins has a full 
remission of the penalty without buying an indulgence; and 
that poor people, who have nothing to spare, -had better spend their 
money in procuring necessaries for their households. 

How little Luther thought of breaking with the Romish Church 
at this time, may be seen from a letter which he addressed to the 
Pope in May of the following year. In this letter he says: 
" Wherefore, most Holy Father, I prostrate myself at the feet of 
your clemency with all that I have and am. Bid me live, or slay 
me, call, recall, approve, disapprove, as it pleases you; I acknowl- 
edge in your voice the voice of Christ presiding and speaking in 
you." But experience was to teach him, little by little, that he 
had nothing whatever to expect from the Church, and that the 
Church expected and would accept nothing from him but com- 
plete recantation and subjection without question. Experience 
and reflection taught him to take a firmer and bolder stand. 



58 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



Persecuted and threatened on every side by the agents of the 
Church, protected only by his own immediate sovereign, the 
Elector of Saxony, he was finally summoned, in the year 1521, to 
make his appearance before the Imperial Diet at Worms, and re- 
nounce his errors. "Please God, he give not way; please God, 
he answer courageously ; that he suffer himself to be overcome 
by no terror;" was the prayer of many who looked to him for 
deliverance. Before entering the town he was warned that he was 
going into the jaws of death, for, as Huss had been burned in 
spite of the guarantee of security, so the Pope had written to the 
emperor, desiring him not to observe the safe conduct, and the 
bishops had urged his Majesty to comply with the Pope's request; 
but Martin was not to be intimidated. " I will enter Worms," 
he said, " though there be as many devils there are there are tiles 
on the house-tops." And enter he did, and this was the answer 
which he gave to the emperor, the assembled electors, cardinals, 
bishops, priests and deputies : " Except I be conquered and con- 
vinced by the testimonies of Scripture, or by clear and sufficient 
reasons (for I put no confidence in the Pope or in the councils, 
because they have both manifestly often been mistaken, and have 
often contradicted each other), I neither can nor will retract any 
thing, inasmuch as it is neither safe nor advisable to do any thing 
against conscience. Here I take my stand ; I can do no otherwise, 
so help me God. Amen." 

With the utterance of these glorious words Luther reached the 
culminating point of his activity. They are the most important 
words uttered during the whole period of the Reformation. And 
it is because I regard them as containing the whole spirit and 
principle, and at the same time the whole task and mission, of 
the Reformation, that I propose to start from them in the further 
development of my theme. 

The Bible, Reason, and Conscience — these are the three essential 
elements contained in this immortal declaration. And out of 
the ever-changing relation of these elements, the emerging into 
marked prominence or apparent disappearance of one or the 
other, its temporary sway or suppression, the whole history of 
Protestantism proceeds. It is also exceedingly remarkable that 
this whole history, the whole spiritual conflict of three and a half 
centuries, with all its struggles, defeats and triumphs, was, as it 



PROTESTANTISM— ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 59 



were, prophetically mirrored in the mental and moral life of the 
man whose heroic deed we to-day commemorate. To this extra- 
ordinary man was committed the extraordinary task of opening 
a new era in the world's history, of making the frozen elements 
again fluid, of exhibiting in himself, as it were, the whole prepara- 
tory process of fermentation, through which the following centu- 
ries w T ere to pass. But he himself was not permitted to reach the 
goal and grasp the prize. History reaches nothing by a bound ; 
she needs long periods in which to accomplish her work. She first 
gathers the grapes, presses out the juice, then lets it ferment. It 
is a long time before the wine becomes clear and fit to drink. So 
such great historic movements become clarified only after many 
angry and boisterous generations have been gathered to the fathers. 
But although it was necessarily left to later ages to complete 
Luther's work, let us never forget the debt of thanks we owe to 
him and to the nation that bore him. For in what other nation 
could History have even sought the hero she then needed? And 
in what other man of this nation but this most German of the 
Germans could she have found the undaunted and dauntless cour- 
age, the mighty mind, the physical power and endurance, the 
moral greatness, the religious fervor coupled with such cheerful 
disposition, the profound earnestness and seriousness allied to such 
inexhaustible humor, all those gifts and virtues which were indis- 
pensable to her chosen warrior in that trying hour? Yes, we 
indeed look up to that man with deep and fervent admiration and 
love, who lived and suffered for us as few men ever did. Honor 
and praise be unto his name to-day, and the love of men be his, 
even to the latest generation. 

But, after all, let us not forget that Luther, like all other men, 
had his limitations. Let us honor and reverence, but not deify 
him. His whole endeavor was " to bring, through love and hon- 
est industry, the truth to light;" but it is with. the work of a sin- 
gle man as with his knowledge — it is only " in part," full of im- 
perfection. Bible, reason, conscience — these were glorious words; 
but Luther, in spite of all his endeavors, never knew how to de- 
termine their reciprocal relation. At one time he rails at reason 
as a harlot, who, wholly given over to vanity, takes the soul cap- 
tive with her deadly wiles. At another, he treats the Bible in a 
manner wholly arbitrary, rejects or retains the individual books 



60 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



only as they happen to coincide with, or contradict his own opin- 
ion ; he calls one an " epistle of straw ;" says of another that it 
contains a number of" most excellent bits of fun;" and of a third 
that it has " neither boots nor spurs, but rides in its socks, just as 
he himself did when he was in the monastery." Conscience alone, 
the high moral impulse within him, never forsook him, although 
it was now and then obscured and rendered ineffectual by the old 
superstitions. He, the bitter opponent of the doctrine of moral 
freedom, was freedom's immortal image and example. 

But, as I have already hinted, the contradiction and conflict 
between these different elements was not manifest in Luther alone, 
but in the whole consciousness of his time, and was also entailed 
upon later ages. For long centuries the whole Christian world 
had been accustomed to submit to the unquestioned and unlimited 
authority of the Church, and it was quite natural that it should 
imagine some external authority still to be necessary. The human 
mind had gone upon crutches so long that without them its per- 
fectly sound legs refused their service. It had broken the crutch 
of ecclesiastical authority ; it made itself a new one out of the 
Bible. The Church had hitherto been the norm for all human 
thought and action ; the Bible was to become that norm. But it 
was not long before men became aware that a compact rule of 
faith, which should cover all the relations of life, and be at the 
same time clear and intelligible to all men, even the most un- 
learned, was not to be found in the Bible. The Bible alone was 
found, after all, to be insufficient; reason must be called in to 
gather together the essential points of faith out of the Scripture, 
and arrange them into a system. Thus, the Protestant confessions 
of faith arose as a sort of learned substitute for the Bible. These 
contained the essential conditions of salvation ; such things as it 
was necessary to believe were here expressed in more or less in- 
telligible language, and all the various branches of the Protestant 
Church subscribed thereto. The clergy were put under obliga- 
tions to maintain them, and in accordance with them the laity 
were instructed and governed. 

But in this procedure the help of an ally had been called in, 
who, after the struggle was over, would not withdraw without his 
share of the booty ; he even seemed to lay claim to the greater 
part thereof, perhaps to the whole. There was great confusion in 



PROTESTANTISM— ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 61 



the camp; the ally had every thing in his power. At length a 
secret treaty was made, according to which lie appeared to be sat- 
isfied with a very modest share, and promised not to return. The 
name of this ally was — Reason. 

For a long time — down to the eighteenth century — the Bible, 
in the form of the symbolical books, remained, almost unquestioned, 
the highest authority of the new church. But then, the old ally, 
now regarded as the most dangerous enemy, awoke from his appar- 
ent sleep, and again demanded his share. There was a clause in 
the treaty, the full scope of which had not been discovered. Now, 
for the first time, it was seen that neither the whole content of 
Scripture, nor the whole content of reason, was represented in the 
symbolical writings. The enemy became at once master of the 
position, and the reign of the rationalismus vulgaris began. Even 
under this rule it was thought necessary to maintain intact both 
Scripture and symbols ; the consequence was, that both were so 
misinterpreted, maltreated, and distorted, that scarcely a single 
recognizable feature remained. 

But at last, in the present century, the real right of the Bible 
was acknowledged ; not indeed the right which incipient Protest- 
antism had claimed for it, but that right which really belongs to 
it — the right of being, with absolute impartiality, historically and 
critically investigated, in order that, according to the result of 
such investigation, it may take its rightful place in the religious 
development of mankind. Thus, during the last thirty years, the 
Bible has been thoroughly investigated, with all the auxiliaries 
of science and by the light of history and criticism. We now 
know, if not every particular in regard to it, yet precisely what to 
think of it as a whole. We know that it is not one book, in any 
proper sense of the term, but a conglomeration of books. We 
know that these books, both those of the Old Testament and those 
of the New, are of human origin, are divine and inspired only in 
the sense in which every thing finite and temporal is the efflux of 
Deity, a manifestation of infinite power, wisdom, and love. We 
know that even the books of the New Testament were written 
under the most different circumstances, at periods widely remote 
from each other, by men of the most diverse natural gifts and ex- 
perience, and for purposes equally diverse. But how does all this 
affect our feeling toward the Bible? Has the Bible, in conse- 



62 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



quence of these investigations, fallen in onr own estimation ? Nay, 
it has rather risen. For the immediate work of the Divine Spirit, 
can, at the most, be nothing more than an object of man's aston- 
ishment and adoration ; but that which man himself, in the course 
of his history, has accomplished, is an example and encouragement 
for us all, that we may strive to attain the same loftiness of soul, 
and press forward to even still greater achievement. 

No, my friends, the Eeformation was not the work of a moment, 
nor of a century. Protestantism is not a completed fact, but a 
principle, a process. How different every thing looks now, in 
every department of life and knowledge, from what it did in the 
sixteenth century. Not one of the great reformers of that period 
had any real historical and critical knowledge of the Bible ; there- 
fore reason and conscience were taken captive by the Scripture, 
and all the movements and relations of life were fettered to its 
letter. But now the free subjectivity of man, his judgment and 
his conscience, have come to their rights in opposition to both 
Church and Bible. 

Mind, the soul, is unfettered ; morals are bound only to the 
moral law — the conscience ; and the Bible, instead of being the 
anchor to which all life is moored, has become life's pharos and 
loadstar. 

O, ye children of the great Reformation, prize as above all price 
the blessings which the great souls of more than three centuries, 
through hot combat and in bloody sweat, achieved for you. To- 
day, as ever, the old Roman lion, although in somewhat dirty 
sheep's clothing, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Be- 
ware of him, and of every spirit of darkness and lies; strive ever- 
more after truth and light; learn evermore, sure that you can 
never exhaust the fountains of truth ; and thus you will enter into 
the joy of your Father, which He has prepared for all those who 
love Him. 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 63 



LETTER OF REV. THOMAS VICKERS TO ARCH- 
BISHOP PUR CELL. 

[Published in the Cincinnati Gazette, Nov. 7th, 1867.] 

Cincinnati, November 5th, 1867. 

( The 262d Anniversary of Gunpowder Treason.) 
To Archbishop Pur cell, of Cincinnati — 

Most Reverend Sir : I have waited until now before reply- 
ing to your last effusion, partly because I have had something 
better to do, and partly because I thought it would afford you no 
little gratification and delight to be able to associate this reply 
with an anniversary which must be so full of pleasant historical 
remembrances to every Roman Catholic who loves free thought, 
and deprecates the union of Church and State. 

Permit me, in the first place, in your behalf, to correct a false 
report which some of your enemies have been circulating since the 
appearance of the article in the Catholic Telegraph of October 30th. 
It has been maliciously suggested that you are incapable of pro- 
ducing an article couched in terms of such extraordinary courtesy, 
betraying such a cultivated and refined taste, coupled with such 
a display of logical acumen, and such unexampled candor and 
honesty ; that had you produced such a masterpiece of polemical 
writing, you would never have allowed it to go forth without 
your signature. Of course, nothing but malice and desperate ill- 
will could have suggested such a thing ; and I joyfully take the 
first opportunity of freeing you from such unjust suspicions. It 
is perfectly evident to all careful readers that, although you did 
not (for some reason best known to yourself) append your sig- 
nature to it, you nevertheless wrote the article. For, do you not, 
in three several places, in referring to a former article to which 
your name was attached, use the first personal pronoun : " We 
argued," " we said," " we told him before " ? and do you not say, 
"we republish a portion of our Pastoral of 1862"? Of course 



64 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



you wrote it; nothing but the most unscrupulous enmity could 
wish to deprive you of the honor which necessarily follows such 
eminent productions. 

A Slight Drawback. — After this voluntary vindication of 
your rights, I trust you will not take it amiss if, before proceed- 
ing to examine the essential points of your reply, I make a sin- 
gle remark. You seem to have the slight misfortune of seeing 
things in documents " before you " which are not there, and of 
not seeing things which are there. This, unfortunately, slightly 
detracts from the trustworthiness of your representations, and 
makes the task of replying to you somewhat unpleasant. I shall 
have occasion to notice several cases in which this ophthalmic 
difficulty of yours manifests itself. First, in regard to 

" Freemen " and " Free Speech." — You say that, " in the 
paper before you," I " insist " on having " inflicted no censure " 
on the " freemen of Ohio " for voting against the Constitutional 
Amendment. In that paper I never said any such thing. On 
the contrary, I vindicated my right to censure them ; that is, to 
express my opinion in regard to their action. And this right I 
never denied even to the Romish Church. This was not " the 
point, friend," as you very well know. The point was that the 
Romish Church claims, not only the right " to tell men so," when 
they " think and speak what is wrong," but she claims the right 
to punish men for speaking what is contrary to her doctrines ; 
what they say may be in itself wrong or right. This I stated 
just as plainly "in the paper before you" as I have done now. 
InteUigibilia, non intellectum, fero. I would suggest your delegat- 
ing the controversy to some one who is not troubled with any of 
the various species of ophthalmia. 

Emeesox. — Xo one respects Mr. Emerson more than I do; but 
I do not feel bound by his opinions, especially on matters concern- 
ing which he has but little knowledge. Now, had you searched 
his writings through, you could scarcely have found a paragraph 
with more blunders in it than the one you quoted. In the first 
place, no sensible, well-read man, nowadays, includes the fif- 
teenth century in the Dark Ages, consequently we do not owe the 
art of printing and the discovery of America to them. Further- 
more, the Dark Ages gave us neither gunpowder, glass, nor chem- 
istry ; and had Mr. Emerson, at the time he wrote the paragraph 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 65 



in question, been at all intimately acquainted with the history of 
the arts and sciences, he never would have said they did. We 
know that glass, for instance, was used at least sixteen hundred 
years before the Christian era. Why, we already find pictures of 
glass-blowers on the Egyptian monuments. And when Mr. 
Emerson says that " human thought was never more active, and 
never produced greater results in any period of the world " than 
in the one under discussion, the assertion is simply an historical 
blunder. But there is another point on which this extract from 
Emerson will serve you a sorry trick. Alas ! you really seem 
doomed to perish by your own weapons. Why did not your 
" Guardian Angel " stay your hand before you wrote the name of 

Roger Bacon ? — Do you not remember that my original the- 
sis was, that the Romish Church had never tolerated free thought? 
Had you forgotten the cruel persecutions which this same Fran- 
ciscan monk, Bacon, had to endure from the Church on account 
of his free thought ? Had you forgotten that he was condemned 
propter novitates quasdam suspectas? — that, from 1257 until 1267, 
he Avas continually persecuted, kept most of the time in prison, 
and prevented from holding any intercourse with the outward 
world? Had you forgotten that, in 1278, when he was sixty- 
four years old, he was summoned to Paris, where a council of 
Franciscans, with the Pope's legate at their head, condemned his 
writings, and committed him to close confinement, and that, for 
ten years, every effort to procure his liberation was in vain ? Had 
you forgotten that, even after his death, the monks feared and 
hated his books so much that they nailed them to boards to pre- 
vent their being read, and "left them to rot amid dirt and 
damp?" O, most reverend sir, is this w r hat you meant when 
you said that the Church only tells men that they are wrong, 
when she finds them so ? 

Firmilian. — I am not at all surprised that you seek to rid your- 
self of this uncomfortable adversary. His bitter opposition to the 
supremacy and infallibility of the Roman Bishop has always been 
a " thorn in the flesh " of the Romish Church. She first tried to 
suppress entirely the letter from which I quoted, and it is, there- 
fore, not to be found in the editions of Cyprian by Erasmus and 
Manutius. Although it is extant in twenty-six different codices, 
it was first printed by Guil. Morellius, Paris, 1564, who was bit- 
5 



66 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



terly censured for his temerity by Lathms and Pamelius. But 
the Church, finding it impossible to suppress the letter, tried an- 
other expedient — she tried to prove it a forgery. And if it were 
necessary, dear sir, I could furnish you the names of quite a 
number of persons who tried this game besides your redoubtable 
friend, Marcellinus Molkenbuhr — that great critical genius (!) 
who also wrote a treatise to prove that the books of the New Tes- 
tament were originally written in Latin ! But even the Romish 
Church has long since given up the forgery-hypothesis ; there is 
no longer any controversy on the matter. There is not a single 
Church historian or critic, whose opinion is worth noticing, whether 
Catholic or Protestant, who does not admit the letter to be genu- 
ine. Walch, Rettberg, Lardner, Mosheim, Neander, Milner, Mil- 
man, Guericke, Gieseler, Schaaf, all admit its genuineness. Pretty 
good authorities, and plenty of them. But allow me to direct 
your attention to three Roman Catholic authorities, as these will 
probably weigh most with you. The first is the celebrated Tille- 
mont, of whom Dupin says : " There is nothing which has escaped 
his exactness, and there is nothing obscure or intricate which his 
criticism has not cleared up or disentangled." If you will take 
the trouble to look into the Memoires pour servlr a VHlstolre Ec- 
clesiasiique (tome iv, p. 157 et seq.), you will find that his opinion 
does not coincide with that of your immaculate critic. But let 
us come a little nearer home. If I am not mistaken, Archbishop 
Kenrick has, in the Catholic Church, quite a reputation for schol- 
arship (has he not, dear sir?), and yet, in his book on the "Pri- 
macy of the Apostolic See (5th ed., p. 116 et seq.), he quotes the 
letter as genuine. The third authority is the "Church Lexicon, 
or Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology, edited by Heinrich Joseph 
Wetzer and Benedict "Welte (both Catholic professors of theology 
at the Catholic University of Freiburg), aided by some of the most 
distinguished Catholic scholars In Germany," and published, in 
twelve volumes, by the well-known Catholic publisher, Herder, 
in Freiburg. I translate literally, from vol. iv, p. 74 (published 
in 1850): "Cyprian consulted Firmilian, in order to learn from 
him more aecurately the opinion and practice of the orientals in 
the matter in question (baptism by heretics) ; and Firmilian, in 
a long letter, not without violence, mockery, and irony, declared 
himself against Pope Stephen, and sought to defend the practice 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 67 



of the orientals. This letter, originally written in the Greek lan- 
guage, was translated into Latin by Cyprian, and is found among 
Cyprian's Letters as epistola 75." How could you be so in the 
dark, most reverend sir ? I would suggest the propriety of dele- 
gating the controversy to some one better acquainted with the his- 
tory of Christian literature than you seem to be. 

Augustine and Aquinas. — In regard to these two men, I wish 
to ask you a few questions, which I beg you to answer without any 
contortions or equivocations. Did Augustine, knowing the laws 
against heresy, call upon the civil power to enforce them against the Do- 
natists, or did he not ? Did Thomas Aquinas justify the punishment 
of heresy by death, or did he not ? Did I, or did I not, quote, in my 
last reply, the exact language of Aquinas, as found, not only in 
Migne, but in all editions of this author? and if I did, by what canon 
of ecclesiastical morals do you say I " pretended to quote " it ? 

The Secular Tribunal. — It was, of course, to be expected 
that you would assert that the Church had nothing to do with 
executing the sentence of death upon heretics; she handed them 
over to the secular arm (!) Now, most reverend sir, allow me to 
ask you another question, and to beg to this, also, an unequivocal 
answer. One instance is as good as a thousand here. Am I 
right in supposing that, in the year 1600, the ecclesiastical and 
the secular power in Borne were both in the hands of the Church ? 
And if so, what power executed Giordano Bruno, who was burned 
there on the 17th of February of that year for heresy? 

Still further, let me ask you if the following is one of the 
forty-one errors of Luther, condemned in the bull of Leo X, bear- 
ing date June 14th, 1520: " Hcereticos comburi, est contra volun- 
tatem spiritus V And is the following a correct translation : " To 
burn heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit?" 

Furthermore, is the following a correct translation of one of the 
closing paragraphs of the bull of Innocent X against the errors of 
Jansen, dated May 31, 1653? " We likewise prescribe to all patri- 
archs, archbishops, bishops, etc., as well as to all inquisitors of 
heretical depravity, that they utterly restrain and repress all those 
who are refractory and rebellious [concerning the matter in hand] 
by means of the above-mentioned pains and penalties, and the 
other suitable remedies juris et facti, and also if it should be 
necessary, by the aid of the secular arm, invoked for that purpose" 



68 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



Furthermore, is the following a correct translation of one of 
the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council ? " We excommunicate 
and condemn every heresy which exalteth its face against this 
holy and Catholic faith. Let such persons, when condemned, be 
left to the secular powers, to be punished in a fitting manner. 
And let the secular powers be admonished, and, if need be, com- 
pelled, that they should set forth an oath, that, to the utmost of 
their power they icill strive to exterminate all heretics who 
shcdt be denounced by the Church. But, if any temporal lord shall 
neglect to cleanse his country of this heretical filth, let him be 
bound by the chain of excommunication. If he shall scorn to 
make satisfaction, let it be signified to the supreme Pontiff, that 
he may declare his vassals to be absolved from their fidelity ." Did 
not Pope Pius V do this very thing ? Did he not excommunicate 
Queen Elizabeth, and absolve her subjects from their oath of fealty ? 

How dare you, most reverend sir, falsify history by asserting 
that the Church had nothing to do with the " consummation " of 
the sentence she passed upon heretics ? 

Progress. — I, too, thank God that " the world has outgrown 
the policy and practice " of putting men to death for an opinion. 
But you will permit me to doubt whether the Church has out- 
grown the principles which led her to put men to death for this 
cause. Allow me to call your attention to a fact which did not 
occur in the middle ages, to which you would seem to relegate 
all sympathy with killing men for opinion's sake, but in the year 
of grace 1862. Your brother Archbishop, Desprey, of Toulouse, 
published a pastoral in April, year just named, in which he called 
upon the faithful in his diocese to celebrate, on the 16th of May, 
a "glorious event, in which, three hundred years ago, the good- 
ness of God and the succoring power of His saints had been so 
plainly manifested." What was this " glorious event "?" It was 
the butchery of four thousand Huguenots in cold blood, after they 
had laid down their arms and received the promise of unmolested, 
retreat. I think you will agree with me that the progress (?) in 
the Romish Church is of somewhat recent date. So long as Rome 
continues to manufacture saints out of the bloodiest mercenaries 
of the Inquisition, we may well pause and reflect. Had your 
visit to Rome during the present year, most reverend sir, any 
thing to do with such a canonization ? 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 69 



The Jesuits Again. — I not only say " that the Jesuits' vow 
binds them to things contrary to the known law of God," but I 
can prove it. Do you desire me to quote still further from the 
" Constitutions " ? I will name to you three Jesuit manuals of 
morals, which you undoubtedly have in your library, and beg 
you to look into them before proceeding further in this contro- 
versy. The first is the Compendium Theol. Moralis, by M. Moul- 
let, formerly Professor in Freiburg. The second is Ssettler's 
Commentary on the Sixth Commandment, augmented by Abbe 
Rousselot, Professor at the Seminary in Grenoble. The third is 
also a commentary on the Sixth Commandment, with a disserta- 
tion de matrimonio, by Bishop Bouvier, of Mans (10th ed., Paris, 
1813). How would you like to have me cite, with parallel trans- 
lations, such passages as the one beginning with the following 
words, from the first : " Si quis delectatur de copula cum muliere 
nupta" etc. ; or this from the second : " Expedite prudenter et 
data occasione a mulieribus et etiam a puellis qumrere, utrum cum 
bestia," etc. ; or this from the third : " Licet confessiones mulierum 
excipere, cum eis utiliter et honeste conversari, eas visitare vel decen- 
ter amplecti, v etc. ? Do, please, look into them, and let me know 
in your next reply whether I shall proceed. 

The Pastoral. — There are several other points which I 
should like to notice, but, with a word concerning your " pastoral," 
I will conclude. Of course, you know that the Encyclical and 
Syllabus were addressed to you as well as to all other " patriarchs, 
primates, archbishops," etc., and that you are bound by every word, 
of it. But, in writing your pastoral, you probably remembered 
the instructions which Pius VII addressed to his nuntius in Vi- 
enna, in the year 1805, in which the following words occur : " We 
live, alas ! in times of such great misfortune and such humiliation 
for the spouse of Christ, that the Church is not only unable to make 
use of her most holy principles of deserved severity against the rebel- 
lious enemies of the faith, but she dare not even mention 

THEM WITHOUT DETRIMENT." 

May I not beg you, in conclusion, if you are still desirous of 
having the controversy continued, that you will delegate your side 
to some one who recognizes the common principles of grammar, 
logic, and morals ? With due respect, most reverend sir, 

Thomas Vickers, 

Minister of the First Congregational Society. 



70 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



ARCHBISHOP PUB CELL TO BEY. MB. TICKERS. 

[Published in the Catholic Telegraph, November 13, 1867.] 

Rev. Sir : — In your lucubration, published in the Cincinnati 
Gazette, of the 7th inst., you intimate a wish to have my side of 
this controversy delegated to some one who recognizes the com- 
mon principles of grammar, logic, and morals. Permit me, there- 
fore, to inquire how much a quarter you would ask for teaching 
one as dull as I am grammar ? I shall not, however, hire you as 
a competent pedagogue to teach me logic or morals, for you know, 
dear Mr. Vickers, nemo dot quod non habet. You have set me 
the example of larding your letters with Latin, and you can not 
find it amiss that I follow it grammatically. And, furthermore, I 
give you full credit for the statement of a " false report " which, 
you say, " some of my enemies had been circulating since the ap- 
pearance of my article in the Telegraph, of the 30th of October/' 
Of course you heard it, or you never would have said you had. 
There must be a basis of truth for a flourish of rhetoric. And 
you wrote your last on the 5th of November for the reasons given. 
These reasons were, doubtless, very satisfactory to your own refined 
mind and feelings. But you will excuse me for so much free think- 
ing and speaking as to hint that on that memorable occasion of 
the so-called " gunpowder plot," you would have taken a promi- 
nent part as Cecil's spy and Tresham's accomplice, if not Catesby's 
murderer, if you did not hold the dark lantern for Guy Fawkes, 
or import the thirty barrels of powder from Holland, or cart 
them from Lambeth, or cover them with old iron and firewood in 
the cellar of the Parliament house, and been inspired, like King 
James, " by the Holy Ghost," to call this mad enterprise of nine 
deluded fanatics a Popish plot. You see, my dear, amiable Mr. 
Yickers, I would rather think this of you than call you a scav- 
enger that rakes up the kennels of history to fling dirt at the 
Catholics. It might be that some enemy, judging from the hot 
haste with which you fled from a discussiou on free thought to the 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY\ 71 



easier declamation about persecution, would suggest that this was for 
you a more congenial occupation. But I would not believe them, 
would you ? Whatever your motives were, I thank you sincerely, 
cordially for the character you give Martin Luther in your ser- 
mon in Hopkins' Hall, on the 4th of November. It was exceed- 
ingly kind on your part, if not a judicial blindness, to tell the 
truth so plainly about the " Father of the Reformation." I am 
delighted at the opportunity thus given to call the attention of my 
beloved Catholic flock and of all sincere non-Catholic inquirers for 
truth to this matrix and womb of your new religion, of whom you 
say in your eloquent effusion : " Honor and praise be unto his 
name to-day, and the love of men be his unto the latest genera- 
tion." Here it is : " At one time he, Martin Luther, rails at 
reason as a harlot, who, wholly given over to vanity, takes the 
soul captive with her deadly wiles. At another he treats the 
Bible in a manner wholly arbitrary, rejects or retains the indi- 
vidual books only as they happen to coincide with, or contradict 
his own opinion; he calls one an epistle of straw; he says of an- 
other that it contains a number of most excellent bits of fun ; 
and of a third that it has neither boots nor spurs, but rides in its 
socks, just as he himself did when he was in the monastery." 
After thus practically despoiling man of the only faculty by which 
he holds the scepter of this world, or communes with the next 
before receiving the gift of revelation, the Archreformer robs him 
of free will, which he makes and calls a slave — " slave will." The 
human will he makes a brute-beast — a horse — "if God rides it, it 
goes to God ; if the devil, it goes to the devil." This makes 
man a mere machine. It deprives him of manhood. It takes 
from him all the responsibility of crime, all the merit of virtue. 
And Luther did not recoil from the consequences of his innova- 
tion. " Sin boldly," he exclaimed, " sin deeply ; the more you sin 
the more you honor faith, the dearer child you are of God." And 
this, among others, was the advice he gave to his melancholy 
friend John Weller. "Drink" says the old debauchee to him, 
" drink and amuse yourself with Kate." Glory, honor, and praise 
be to the German Catholics of this day, and the love of man be 
theirs to the latest generations, who adhere to the religion of 
their fatherland, refusing to identify themselves with the spawn 
of such a reformation as he engendered. What think you, rev- 



72 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



erend sir, of this portion of my answer ? Do you see yourself in 
this " mirror ?" Does it fairly reflect your features, your grammar, 
your logic and your morals? You say the old religion used the 
Church, the new one used the Bible, for a crutch. This admis- 
sion plainly shows the " Reformation was a principle, a process, that 
not one of the great reformers had any real historical and critical 
knowledge of the Bible ; therefore, ' reason and conscience ? were 
taken captive by the Bible, and all the movements and relations 
of life were fettered to its letter." Think of this, young men, and 
old men, Christian and Evangelical associations of Cincinnati, and 
break your crutch, put this old mutilated Bible — mutilated by 
Martin Luther and Rev. Mr. Vickers — in the alembic of conscience 
and reason, and take for your mental pabulum the residuum. 

What will be this residuum ? If you are not expert enough 
chemists to discover it yourselves, ask Mr. Vickers and his aids 
to please take you into their laboratory. You will soon learn that 
Christ, whom you make the head of your religion, " is a theolo- 
gical fiction f that the Holy Spirit is not any more than Christ, 
very God, but a theological fiction ; that the devil is a theological 
fiction, but, for your lives, do not suggest to the professor that 
when the devil gets a grip of him — as he surely will, " except he 
do penance" — it will be no fiction. If you told him this, it 
might disturb the nice analysis. You will learn, of course, as a 
corollary, that hell, like Satan, is but an oriental metaphor; and 
that when the Gospel says Christ cast seven devils out of the sin- 
ful woman, he only cast seven oriental metaphors out of her; 
that when Jehovah forbids coveting, he is not to be obeyed, for 
he forbids free thought; and that, in Deuteronomy xvii : 10, 11, 
12, where he commands a man not to follow the dictates of his 
conscience or reason, but simply to obey the judgment of the 
priest, and that, in penalty of disobedience and free thinking, " he 
shall die the death," he is more of a despot than any freeman in 
Ohio, New York, or Pennsylvania. 

With this intelligence of the Bible, go, gentlemen of the Bible 
Society, and circulate these emasculated, mutilated, misinterpreted 
Scriptures no longer the word of God, but Mr. Tickers' ; or if you 
will be honester still, tell your beneficiaries the Bible is but a 
crutch, and the sooner they break it in the name of conscience 
and reason the better. 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 73 



And now, my dear Mr. Vickers, who make of the Bible what 
you make of the reformation, a "principle/' a "process" from 
which you evolve all the startling impieties I have enumerated, 
" even to the denying of our only Sovereign and Lord, Jesus 
Christ," do you not see that you are of those " certain men," of 
whom St. Jude speaks, verse 4, " who were of old marked out for 
this judgment" (condemnation) ? Is it not the rejection of all the 
vital truths of Christianity in which — as Catholic writers like 
Bossuet have so often predicted — free thinking on religious mat- 
ters drives its votaries from one error to another, until they find 
no resting-place but in the abyss of atheism ? If you see not this, 
you see not what the Bible, the best of books, the book by excel- 
lence, sets before you. If you see it not, I counsel thee, with that 
blessed book, " to buy eye-salve," (Rev. iii : 13) to cure thy foul 
ophthalmia. 

Well, you quarrel with Emerson. It is a family jar. I leave 
you to settle it as best you may. 

But Roger Bacon ! Why, sir, when you laud him, and laud 
Luther, you forget that it was in the bosom of our benighted 
Church they acquired, the one all his science, the other all his 
learning. The one was a Franciscan, the other an Augustinian 
friar, priest. Bacon, over whom you shed such crocodile tears, 
was called by our Church, and by his brethren, " Doctor admir- 
abilis," the admirable doctor, for his extraordinary knowledge of 
astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics. If his religious supe- 
rior forbade him to lose his own precious time, and turn the heads 
of his brother monks by writing and talking of alchemy, the 
philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, divining wands, and the 
making of a brazen head that would answer the questions pro- 
posed to it, this restraint did no serious injury to Bacon or to 
science. 

You make a wonderful fuss about Firmilian. Why, sir, can 
you have so soon forgotten what I said of him so recently — that 
if he had used such coarse language in addressing the Pope, he 
only illustrated the more clearly the free thinking and speaking 
allowed or exercised in the Catholic Church ? And if I gave his 
memory the benefit of a serious doubt as to the authenticity of 
the letter, the very array of names you quote to prove it genuine 
goes only to show that many others regarded it as the spurious 



74 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



production of an African Donatist. And now, with all my re- 
spect for the celebrated Tillemont, and the little respect I have 
for many things said by his eulogist, Dupin, allow me to tell you 
that even Tillemont occasionally — like the " bonus Horaerus " — 
napped. It would lead me off the road to quote for this remark 
the learned Alban Butler. But if Firmilian said all that is im- 
puted to him, and more, it was on the well-known occasion of the 
controversy about the validity of baptism conferred by heretics, 
in which St. Cyprian was mistaken, and the Pope was not. Then 
Firmilian should have spoken as an excited partisan, forgetting 
that his principal — that is, St. Cyprian — called " the chair of 
Peter the principal church, the origin of the sacerdotal unity, 
whither perfidy can not find access." (Ep. 59 ad Cornelian, No. 
10, p. 265.) As Butler says, " The warmth Cyprian betrayed in 
this controversy he much repented of, as appears by the book he 
afterward wrote on patience." Let us hope that if Firmilian 
erred like Cyprian for a time, like Cyprian he repented. But be 
this as it may, his opinion has not a feather's weight in the ques- 
tion of the Pope's supremacy. You ask me questions about Au- 
gustine, Aquinas and yourself. Before answering — and I shall 
answer most categorically — allow me to congratulate you on getting 
into such good company. Firstly, then, St. Augustine, when 
reproached by the Donatists with the persecuting laws enforced 
against them, replied : " If any severity inconsistent with Chris- 
tian lenity has, at any time, been exercised against you, it dis- 
pleases all true Christians." " Xo good man in the Catholic 
Church approves of the capital punishment of a heretic. (Lib. 
Contra Ep. Par men, Ch. XIII : Contra Crescon. lib. Ill, Ch. 4, 
No. 55. 

AVhen the Circumcellions, by acts of violence and bloodshed, 
had provoked the severity of the magistrate, he remonstrated witli 
the Proconsul in Africa, beseeching him through Jesus Christ not 
to punish them capitally : " We wish not their death but their 
correction." Ep. C. ©lira C. XXVII. 

Secondly, Aquinas : I have already quoted his declaration, 
which is the same as Augustine's — that the Church's province is 
mercy. If they both left the vindication of human laws to the 
secular tribunal it is no more than every honest man and citizen 
w T ould do to-day if heretics made war upon society. You remem- 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 75 



ber how near we were once to a conflict with the Mormons for 
threatened resistance to the laws of the land, and why the people 
of Nauvoo expelled them from their borders. Thirdly, I answer 
yourself by saying that you grossly wronged Augustine when you 
made him the author of persecution for heresy whom others have 
followed. With the Bible and the civil law they regarded as 
criminals the false prophets and the false teachers who brought in 
sects of perdition, denying the Lord who bought them." St. Pe- 
ter 2 Ep., Ch. II. V. 1, and who sought to enforce their sectarian- 
ism and lawlessness by the sword. The third and fourth coun- 
cils of Lateran were mixed assemblies of the spiritual and temporal 
powers. While the Church approves of the enactments passed 
"against offenders by whom every regard for decorum was re- 
moved, the marriage tie dissolved, and divine and human laws 
subverted f vid : Ep. Sti. Leo. ad Turibiunu Yet the Council 
(4th Sec.) expressly forbids clergymen to sign their names to any 
document connected with capital punishment. I need not here 
remind you that Catholics, in these United States have not been 
the authors, but the victims, of intolerance and oppression. The 
faggots, fire, and flames, which you read of, where they were not 
named in the text of Aquinas, were used unmercifully against us, 
as they had been against the unoffending Quakers, in Charlestown, 
Mass., Philadelphia and other places, even from the days of our 
colonial bondage to Great Britain. And the House of Pefuge, 
where no priest is allowed to speak to scores of Catholic children, 
some of them immured for years, for trivial offenses, and the pub- 
lic schools, for whose erection and endowment we Catholics are 
taxed so pitilessly, should shame you and every bigoted auxiliary 
and ungenerous foe to silence and penance. You see, sir, that our 
world " has not outgrown the practice" 

I shall not follow you, sir, where you seem so anxious to lead, 
into the discussion of immoralities, so falsely attributed to the 
writings of Catholic societies or theologians. The pretended 
monk Leahy, who edified the cities and some of the Protestant 
pulpits of the United States with such obscene caricatures, may 
serve you for a model and examplar. You know he finished his 
career by committing murder, and a sentence for life to the Wis- 
consin Penitentiary — from which the wretch was reprieved, if we 
are informed aright, at the prayer of one of the worthiest of Catk- 



76 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



olic prelates, Rt. Rev. Bishop Henni, of Milwaukee. After his 
release he begged permission to go through the country refuting 
his own calumnies, but we spurned him, knowing that they " who 
touch pitch will be defiled by it;" so do I scorn to follow you in 
his wake. You who rob the world of its God and Redeemer, you 
who nickname the Bible a crutch; what have you ever done for 
society or religion? Where are your hospitals, your orphan 
asylums, your refuges for penitents, for any of all the various 
forms of human misery ? What wounds have you healed, what 
tears have you dried, what sorrows have you soothed, what death- 
bed have you sanctified, you who make Christ a " theological fic- 
tion," and the Bible " a crutch/' to be cast away ? The reason 
and the conscience which you vainly, not to say wickedly, seek 
to substitute for both, will sadly fail you, as they do humanity in 
the hour of peril and of sorest need. They have lured their fol- 
lowers, in all ages, into pits and ditches. Reason, which man's 
iniquity soon perverted, taught him to worship his passions for 
gods, and conscience was its accomplice. 

Bruno, whom you should have called by his Italian name of Gior- 
dano Bruni, was, after he had doffed the dominian habit and aposta- 
tized, driven from Geneva by Calvin and Beza, with whom you 
must first settle the account of his persecution. He denied, like 
you, the most important truths of religion, those held by Jews and 
Christians, having been classed by him with the fables of Pagans 
and idolaters. " Reason and conscience" he made, like you, the 
only arbiters of vice and virtue — and this as he understood them. 
The extravagance of his imagination equaled that of his logic. 
From Wittemburg, where he turned Lutherian, he was also ban- 
ished for his assaults on all who dared oppose his irreligious follies. 
He then returned to his native country, and continuing to dogma- 
tise and abuse the Pope, as the " beast," he met the fate he merited, 
for the Pope was temporal as well as spiritual ruler, and bound by 
his duty to preserve the states of the Church from the fury of the 
fanatic. In this the Pope did nothing but what Pio Nono would 
have had a right to do had Garibaldi been captured by his little 
army in the late invasion of Rome. Had the infidel Buccaneer of 
both hemispheres succeeded, he would have, like an hyena, broken 
into the tombs of the holy Apostles and scattered their sacred 
ashes to the winds ; he would have plundered churches and pro- 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 77 



faned the Tabernacles of the Holy Eucharist, and filled the Eter- 
nal City with ruins. Under such circumstances, I say openly, and 
you may make whatever use you please of the admission, the death 
of the miscreant would have been a duty and a benefit. 

I am, sir, in the true faith and love of Christ, whom you are 
every day blaspheming. Yours, 

f J. B. PtTECELL, 

Archbishop of Cincinnati. 



78 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



REJOINDER BY REV. THOMAS TICKERS. 

[Published in the Cincinnati Gazette, November 22, 1867.] 

To the Editor of the Cincinnati Gazette: 

If the honest and intelligent readers of the Gazette have at- 
tentively read the last letter which Archbishop Purcell has seen 
fit to address to me, there is little occasion to burden your columns 
with a reply. At any rate, a brief survey of some of the peculi- 
arities of the controversy will suffice. 

I may say, in passing, that inasmuch as the greater part of my 
last letter was taken up with the treatment of Popes, Councils, 
so-called Fathers and great dignitaries of the Eomish Church, it 
w T ould seem, to say the least, to be somewhat indecorous, and to 
betray a want of se^-respect, when the Archbishop accuses me of 
" raking up the kennels of history." Still, I have no objec- 
tion — suum cuiquef 

The Archbishop's Method of Discussion. — At the close 
of my letter of November 5th, I requested the Archbishop, if he 
wished to continue the controversy, to delegate his side to some 
one who recognized the common principles of grammar, logic and 
morals. It is now in place to develop more clearly why I did 
this, and why I was compelled to do it. There is not, I am sure, 
in the whole literature of the old scholastic wrangles, a parallel to 
the controversial method of the Archbishop. An instance or two 
will suffice to exhibit this method in all its archiepiscopal bril- 
liancy. 

In my sermon of October 14th I had referred to certain 
passages in the " Summa " of Thomas Aquinas, as showing that 
Aquinas justified the burning of heretics, and I had indicated the 
exact places where these passages were to be found. Thereupon 
Archbishop Purcell had the audacity to deny that any such pas- 
sages occurred in the places indicated, meekly offering to exhibit 
his copy of the Summa to any one who might visit him, but 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 79 

taking good care not to print the words of Aquinas. In reply I 
cited the exact words in the original, taking them from the exact 
places originally assigned. In my sermon I had not pretended to 
cite the precise words ; I had spoken of the " burning " of here- 
tics, because I knew that the horrible meaning of the pious ec- 
clesiastical brocard, " ecclesia non sitit sanguinem (the Church does 
not thirst after blood) " found its exposition in the " merciful " sub- 
stitution of the torch for the sword. I knew how Huss, and 
Bruno, and Savonarola, and the myriad victims of the Inquisition 
had perished ; I knew that the record of the " merciful disposi- 
tion of the Church," of which the Archbishop speaks again and 
again, was written, not in blood, but inflames. Now, the precise 
words of Aquinas, as I afterward cited them literally, were, that 
heretics were to be killed (" occidi"), or, in another passage, ex- 
terminated from the world ("a mundo exterminari") , or, in still 
another passage, not to be liberated from the sentence of death (" non 
tamen id Uberentur a sententia mortis"). It would seem that 
these words were sufficiently explicit; although Aquinas did not 
specify the method by which heretics were to be exterminated, 
the method of the Church was burning. And these words were 
conclusive against the Archbishop, for he himself had adduced 
Aquinas as one of the illustrious many who attested the freedom of 
thought in the Catholic Church. Now, what did the Archbishop 
say or do after this? He did not dare directly to deny the genu- 
ineness of the passages I had quoted ; but he dared to write a 
pretended editorial, from which he omitted his signature, and to 
insinuate that the words I had cited were not genuine, by mention- 
ing them as words which I "pretended to quote." 

He, furthermore, resorted to the subterfuge of claiming that 
the Church had nothing to do with the extermination of heretics, 
because she simply handed them over for punishment to the tem- 
poral power! To this it would have been a sufficient answer, 
that whenever this "handing over" took place the Church had 
complete control of the temporal power; but waiving this, I called 
the attention of the Archbishop to the case of Giordano Bruno, 
who was burned at Rome, where both the temporal and the ec- 
clesiastical powers were in the hands of the Pope. And now 
mark the triumphant rejoinder of the Archbishop in his last let- 
ter. He admits that the Pope, who was "temporal as well as 



80 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



spiritual ruler," burned Bruno ; but he says that the name of the 
victim was Giordano Bruni, and not Bruno ; that Bruno or Bruni 
" apostatized ;" that he was " driven from Geneva by Calvin and 
Beza ;" that he was " banished from Wittenberg (where he turned 
Lutheran) for his assaults on all who dared oppose his irreligious 
follies;" that he " returned to his native country/ and continuing 
to dogmatize and abuse the Pope" he " met the fate he merited." 
But the Archbishop does not stop here. He says, with unexam- 
pled candor, that it would have been the " duty " of Pio Xono to 
treat Garibaldi, if he had caught him, in just the same manner. 

I need make no comments on this brazen and blood-thirsty 
utterance. The public now knows the real sentiments of the 
Archbishop, and will judge him accordingly. But the Arch- 
bishop's zeal again betrays his limping scholarship. 

The simple fact is that Bruno was not " driven from Geneva 
by Calvin and Beza ;" that he never " became a Lutheran ;" and 
that he never was " banished from Wittenberg ;" therefore I have 
no need to " first settle the account of his persecution " with the 
Protestant reformers. From what trustworthy (?) Catholic his- 
torian did the Archbishop get his information this time ? 

Firmiliax again. — Another instance of Archbishop Pur- 
cell's polemical practice. I had occasion to allude to Firmilian's 
letter to Cyprian. In his article of October 30th, the Arch- 
bishop pompously announced that in citing this letter I " floun- 
dered in the mire again," and added, " if the gentleman (Mr. 
Vickers) reads the dissertation in 4° written by Marcellinus 
Molkenbuhr, and printed in Munster, Westphalia, in 1790, he 
will find that the letter in question was falsely attributed to Fir- 
milian, and that it was, on the contrary, the production of an 
African Donatist of the fourth century." In reply, I showed 
that this man Molkenbuhr was an idiot, who had, among others, 
also written a treatise to prove that the books of the New Testa- 
ment were originally composed in Latin, and not in Greek, and 
that the most eminent Catholic divines of our day, including 
Archbishop Kenrick, recognized the genuineness of Firmilian's 
letter. All this does not disconcert the Archbishop in the least ; 
although he had a moment before not simply doubted the genuine- 
ness of the letter, but pronounced it spurious, and accused me of 
" floundering in the mire," because I did not know that it was 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 81 



spurious, he has now the ecclesiastical candor to write : " If I 
gave his (Firinilian 7 s) memory the benefit of a serious doubt as 
to the authenticity of the letter, the very array of names you 
quote to prove it genuine goes only to show that many others 
regarded it as the spurious production of an African Donatist." 
What a brilliant specimen of archiepiscopal logic ! 

Emerson again. — Another fine specimen of archiepiscopal 
dialectics. The Archbishop has the misfortune to quote Emerson 
to prove that the so-called " Dark Ages " were " ages of light," 
but when I show him that Emerson did not understand what he 
was talking about, he turns round and exclaims, with the most 
charming nonchalance : " Well, it is a family jar [between you 
and Mr. Emerson]. I leave you to settle it as best you may" (!) 

Question and Answer. — Nothing, however, is so character- 
istic of the conduct of the Archbishop, during this controversy, 
as the manner in which he has asked and answered questions. 
There are, in general, two sorts of weapons on which he has wholly 
relied, and which he has used alternately, as convenience suited. 
On the one hand, he thought to annihilate me by throwing high- 
sounding names, the titles of ponderous folios, and old cathedrals 
at me ; and on the other, he cunningly and (I might say) impu- 
dently sought to make me commit myself on points of Christian 
doctrine wholly irrelevant to the discussion, so as to damage me 
in the estimation of orthodox Protestants, and thus destroy the 
influence of any facts or arguments I might bring against him. 
Now, although I did not, for a moment, recognize his right to 
catechise me on matters of doctrine, I, nevertheless, answered his 
questions simply and directly ; and, by allowing my sermon on the 
"Rise and Progress of Protestantism" to be printed, gratuitously 
gave him material for the greater part of his last coarse diatribe, 
which is mainly devoted to inflaming the prejudices of Protest- 
ants against me. 

But what does the Archbishop do, when I ask him to answer 
questions pertinent to the discussion? He, with a single excep- 
tion, already noticed, either pretends to answer them, " most cat- 
egorically," but does not come within a thousand miles of them, 
or he proceeds as if they had never been asked. In my last let- 
ter, for instance, I asked him some very pointed questions which 
required a direct answer in the affirmative or negative. It will 
, 6 



82 



THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



be interesting to look at them again, and at the treatment they 
receive. 



QUESTIONS. 

1. "Did Augustine, knowing the 
laws against heresy, call upon the civil 
povjer to enforce them against the Do- 
natists, or did he not?" 



2. " Did Thomas Aquinas justify the 
punishment of heresy by death, or did 
he not?" 

3. "Did I, or did I not, quote, in 
my last reply, the exact language of 
Aquinas, as found, not only in Migne, 
but in all editions of this author ? and 
if I did, by what canon of ecclesias- 
tical morals do you say ' I pretended 
to quote' it?" 



4. Is the following one of the forty- 
one heresies of Luther condemned by 
the bull of Leo X, bearing date of June 
14th, 1520: "To burn \comburi) here- 
tics is contrary to the will of the Holy 
Spirit?" 

5. Did Innocent X, in his bull 
against the heresies of Jansen (May 
31, 1653), direct all Archbishops, etc", 
to utterly restrain and repress, by means 
of pains and penalties, all adherents of 
Jansen, and to call in the aid of the sec- 
ular arm, if necessary, to that end ? 

6. Did the Fourth Lateran Council 
decree that "the secular powers be ad- 
monished, and, if need be, compelled 
to take an oath that, to the utmost of 
their power they will strive to extermi- 
nate ALL HERETICS DENOUNCED BY THE 

Church?" 



1. Two passages quoted from Au- 
gustine to show that he did not ap- 
prove of punishing heretics with death, 
or with a "severity inconsistent with 
Christian lenity'" (whatever that may 
mean). Not answered at all. 

2. The repetition of a quotation, dis- 
honestly torn from its context, as I have 
previously shown. Xo answer. 

3. "You grossly wronged August- 
ine (?) when you made him the au- 
thor of persecution for heresy." {Ego 
de caseo loquor, tu de creia respondes. 
And, by the way, what I said of Au- 
gustine was not that he was '"the au- 
thor of persecution for heresy," but 
that he was u the first man in the Oc- 
cident to elaborate a theory for compul- 
sion in religious matters, for the per- 
secution of heretics.") 

4. Xo answer. 



5. Altum silentium ! 



6. "The Fourth Council of Lateran 
was a mixed assembly of the spiritual 
and temporal powers'' (!) 

(Another dishon est subterfuge. The 
Archbishop knows that, under Inno- 
cent III, the secular princes were but 
the slaves of the Church; that Inno- 
cent, by whose authority the Council 
was assembled, and who controlled all 
its actions, claimed to be temporal 
ruler of the whole earth. Romanus 
Pontifex non puri hominis, sed veri Dei 
vicem gerit in terris." Inn. Lib. i, ep. 
335. Dominus Petro non solum uni- 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 83 



versam Ecclesiam, sed totum reliquit 
sceculum gubernandum. Inn. Lib. ii, 
ep. 209. 

The Archbishop furthermore knows 
that the Council of Trent was also a 
"mixed assembly," and that its can- 
ons and decrees are none the less 
binding on him on that account.) 

7. Altissimum silentium 1 



7. Finally, to cap the climax, I asked 
the Archbishop whether his recent visit 
to Rome had any thing to do with ele- 
vating a certain bloody inquisitor to 
saints hip in the Roman Catholic 
Church? 



Heresy and Persecution. — But the Archbishop accuses me 
of " fleeing (?) in hot haste from a discussion on free thought to 
the easier declamation about persecution." Was the Archbishop, 
like his " bonus Homerus" asleep when he wrote this ? or, did he 
suppose that it made no difference whether he wrote sense or non- 
sense, so long as the name of an Archbishop was appended to it ? 
Free thought and persecution ! Is not this just what we have 
been talking about all the time ? Did I not, in the very first ad- 
dress, assert that " wherever free thought attempted to show itself, 
the Church immediately crushed it out ? " Was not this persecu- 
tion with a vengeance ? And was it not this very assertion at 
which the Archbishop took such great offense? "What need, 
then, of "fleeing"? 

But if any one has "fled" it is the Archbishop himself. He 
has fled from the most notorious facts of history, and it is impos- 
sible to get him to face them. He has sought by every artifice to 
maintain the most untenable of all possible propositions — that the 
Romish Church allows liberty of conscience, and never persecutes 
for opinion's sake. I purpose examining one or two more witnesses 
on this point before leaving the matter. The first is Cardinal 
Bellarmin (1542-1621). What does he say ? In the twenty-first 
chapter of the third book of his work, entitled " De Laicis," he 
teaches and proves at length "that heretics, condemned by the 
Church, may be punished with temporal punishment, and even 
icith death" (posse haereticos ab Ecclesia damnatos temporalibus 
poenis etiam morte muldari). In the following chapter, the twenty- 
second, he answers various objections, among others, the one that 



84 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



the Church had never burnt heretics, and says that such an objec- 
tion could only arise from ignorance or willful misstatement ; " for 
that heretics were often burned by the Church, may be proved by 
adducing a few from many examples" (nam quod haeretici sint 
saepe ab Ecclesia combusti, ostendi potest, si adducamus pauca ex- 
empla de multis). Another objection is, that experience shows 
that terror is not useful. Bellarmin replies : "Experience proves 
the contrary ; for the Donatists, Manichaeans, and Albigenses were 
routed and annihilated by arms " (experientia est contrarium : nam 
JDonatistae, Manichaei, et Albigenses armis profligati et extincti sunt.) 
Rather explicit, is he not ? 

The next witness is Peter Dens (" reverendus ac eruditissimvA 
dominus"). In his " Theologia, ad usum seminariorum et sacrae 
theologiae alumnorum," printed at Mechlin, " superiorum permissu" 
in the edition of 1845, vol. ii, pp. 332, 333, under the heading, 
" de poenis criminis haeresis," he advocates the punishment of 
heretics by death, and quotes the very passage which the Arch- 
bishop says I " pretended to quote " from Aquinas ! This book 
was first published in the latter half of the last century, but 
in the year 1808 the Romish clergy of Dublin unanimously 
agreed that it was " the best work, and the safest guide in the- 
ology, for the Irish clergy;" and it is still regarded as high 
authority. 

The next witness is Pope Gregory XVI. In his encyclical let- 
ter, published in 1832, he calls liberty of conscience "an absurdity, 
a delirium," and the freedom of the press a thing " most foul, and 
never to be enough execrated and detested." 

The next is the famous Cardinal Pacca, the Pope's Prime Min- 
ister. In the same year (1832) he wrote : " If in certain circum- 
stances prudence compels us to tolerate them — \i. e., the liberty of 
worship and the liberty of the press] — as one tolerates a less evil 
to avoid a greater, such doctrines can not ever be presented by a 
Catholic as good, or as a desirable thing" Furthermore, one of 
the greatest Catholic theologians of the present day, (Perrone, I, 
265,) says : " Religious toleration is impious and absurd," and he 
goes to great trouble to prove it so. 

But the animus of the Romish Church is best shown by what 
she, at this moment (according to the Pontificalia Romana, de 
Consecratione Episcoporum, Mechlinise, 1855, vol. i, p. 84, seq.) 



REV. THOMAS VICKERS' REPLY. 85 



requires of every bishop in the ceremony of his consecration. 
Among other questions, the bishop elect is asked : " Dost thou 
curse, also, every heresy raising itself against this Holy Catholic 
Church ?" He answers : u I do curse it." This is ratified by the 
oath of consecration. Having sworn to defend, against every one, 
the Roman papacy and the royalties of St. Peter, and to observe, 
and cause to be observed by others, the rules of the sacred fathers, 
the apostolic decrees, ordinances or disposals, reservations, provis- 
ions, and commands," he adds: " Heretics, schismatics, and rebels 
against our Lord (the Pope) or his successors, I will, to the utmost 
of my 'power, persecute and assail." (Hazreticos, schismaticos, 
et rebelles eidem domino nostro vel successoribus prcedictis PRO POSSE 

PERSEQUAR ET OPPUGNABO.) 

Now, what, in the face of all the facts I have cited, does it 
amount to when the Archbishop raves about Circumcellions, false 
prophets, false teachers, persecuted Quakers, colonial bondage to 
Great Britain, house of refuge, apostate monks, etc. ? " Quid enim 
est tarn furiosum quam verborum sonitus inanis, nulla subjectd sen- 
tent id?" 

The Monk Leahy. — Before concluding, it may be well to 
notice one thing more. The name of one of the apostate monks, 
one Leahy, is flung at me by the Archbishop in his last letter ; it 
is the only new name, I believe, which he has vouchsafed, this 
time, to bring into the controversy. This man Leahy, the Arch- 
bishop says, committed murder. I trust that I am not to be held 
answerable for the crimes of all the apostate monks, for I am not 
one of them. Of Leahy, especially, I know nothing, probably 
because I was in Germany when his crime was committed. But 
had the Archbishop forgotten, when he cited this apostate monk, 
what he had said a moment before, in the same letter, about other 
monks? Had he forgotten, that he had apostrophized me in the 
words : " Why, sir, when you laud him (Roger Bacon) and laud 
Luther, you forget that it was in the bosom of our benighted 
Church they acquired, the one all his science, the other all his 
learning? The one was a Franciscan, the other an Augustinian 
frair, priest." Now, if the Archbishop thus insists that the Church 
deserves all the credit of Bacon's science and Luther's learning, 
must he not, pari ratione, vindicate to his Church all the credit for 
Leahy's murder f 



86 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



But enough, and more than enough. In conclusion I will only- 
glance at 

What the Controversy has Settled. — Yes, there are 
some things which this controversy has already definitely settled. 
Not only a recognition of the common principles of grammar, 
logic, and morals, is necessary to the participants in such a contro- 
versy as this, but also a thorough acquaintance with the subject, 
in all its branches and bearings, and, last, but not least, the ability 
to keep one's temper. Now, I do not hesitate to say, that no fair- 
minded, intelligent person, who has followed the course of the 
controversy, can help seeing that Archbishop Purcell has been 
grievously at fault in all these respects. He has hitherto had at 
least the reputation of scholarship, nay, I understand, he has been 
regarded as almost infallible in this direction; he has, hitherto, 
had the reputation of being mild and humane in feeling, polished 
and courteous in manner ; these were illusions which he has done his 
best to dispel. I trust he is satisfied with the result. Of one thing 
I am sure 1 — his " warfare is accomplished ;" he will have no more 
controversies — at least, not of this sort ; for no one will have suffi- 
cient respect for his opinion, or sufficient confidence in his honesty 
of purpose, to run the risk of being a mark for his coarse and 
brutal invective. 

As for me, I can only say, that neither the foaming anathemas 
of Archbishop Purcell, nor the letters threatening personal vio- 
lence, which some members of his " beloved Catholic flock " have 
troubled themselves to write me, will prevent me from denouncing 
bigotry, intolerance, and mendacity, whenever and wherever it 
seems to be my duty. 

Thomas Vickers, 

Minister of the First Congregational Society. 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 87 



REPLY OF ARCHBISHOP PUR CELL. 



"%heir God is a Fiction, their Bible a Crutch." 

[ Published in the Catholic Telegraph, December 4th, 1867.] 

Kev. Mr. Vickers, in the Cincinnati Gazette of November 
2 2d, plays Punchinello in the Italian puppet show. When his 
antagonist had left him floored on the stage, Punchinello, finding 
himself alone, jumps up with a swagger and cries out " Victory ." 

In his conceited self-glorification, he forgets all the ignorance, 
inconsistency, and false statements he had made in his encounter 
with me, and winds up with a statement of what the controversy 
has settled. 

I shall follow his example, and as the Cincinnati Gazette did 
not publish my last two letters, I shall disturb his false security 
by giving those who seek the truth an opportunity, through the 
columns of the Catholic Telegraph, to " hear the other side," or 
apply the rule, as a Latin scholar might prefer, of " audi alteram 
partem."* 

1st. Mr. Vickers, in his speech at the laying of the corner- 
stone of the German Lutheran Church of St. John in this city, 
professed to have been chosen to express the sympathy of the 
American population with the occasion. This, we assert, was, to 
begin with, a false statement. By whom was he chosen ? At 
what convention ? Did the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the 
Baptists, the Methodists, the Catholics — no inconsiderable portion 
of the American population of Cincinnati — choose him ? What 
vouchers, what credentials but his own unreliable word did he 
exhibit ? What delegates then on hand to indorse his statement ? 
" Silentium" 

2d. He spat upon the corner-stone, and insulted all the denomi- 
nations I have named by saying, brutally, to use one of his own 
expressions, " That the Church, whether Roman Catholic or Pro- 
testant, holds free thought and free investigation as heretical as 

* See page 93. T. V. 



88 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



ever; that she is forsaken of all thinkers; she is the object of 
mockery and contempt, and has become a prey to the rats and 
mice of history." This, it must be acknowledged, is modest and 
consistent on the part of the chosen representative of the Ameri- 
can population of Cincinnati, and quite complimentary to the 
chosen of all denominations. 

3d. His ignorance. In his sermon in Hopkins' Hall, reported 
in the city papers of October 14th, he says : " The new dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception makes Jesus the cause of his own 
grandmother's having brought his mother into the world without 
due process of nature." I ask the reader not to overlook his at- 
tempt to escape from the humiliation to which this betrayal of his 
inexcusable ignorance justly subjected the pastor of Hopkins' Hall 
First Congregational Society. 

4th. He illustrated his appreciation of every man's right to 
" free thought " by launching the anathema of despotism, or nick- 
naming and reviling as despots all who voted at the last elections, 
that is to say hundreds of thousands, contrary to his dictation. 
This audacity shows that it is only owing to the circumstances of 
a change of time and place that Mr. Vickers is not a Torgue- 
mada. 

5th. The gentleman denies that free thought was ever toler- 
ated in the Catholic Church. And when I asked him when and 
where there appeared on this earth better, or deeper thinkers or 
writers than the fathers of the early ages, Tertullian, Cyprian, 
Augustine, Lactantius, etc. ; or their successors, Aquinas, Vener- 
able Bede, and hundreds of others, whom it were tedious to men- 
tion, in the long lapse of ages which he calls dark, he quarrels 
with Emerson, of his own school of irreligion, and, of course, 
with the Protestant Carlyle, for eulogising the activity of the 
human mind and the light and the science, and the materials of 
mental advancement and knowledge accumulated at that period, 
saying that " Emerson did not know what he was talking about." 
But when the glorious works of the fathers and doctors of the 
Church rise up as monuments to vindicate the fact that they 
thought freely, investigated thoroughly, spoke and wrote fear- 
lessly, he eludes the force of this argument by saying that they 
advocated punishment of heresy. To this objection we made 
many answers ; first, it does not disprove the fact of their having 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 89 



thought freely if they thought wrong; secondly, they had the 
teaching and example of the God of the Old Testament, whom 
Mr. Vickers probably has not yet disowned, for their opposition 
to false religion ; thirdly, they had learned from the New Testa- 
ment that heresy was classed by the inspired writers with the most 
grievous crimes; fourthly, they were aware of all that true be- 
lievers had to suffer from Pagans, Circumcellions, Donatists, 
Arians, Albigenses, Moors ; and in later years, the Hussites, the 
Peasants, Ziska, and the " endless army of warriors for the light 
and truth of God," who, as Mr. Vickers acknowledges, " requited 
with bloody vengeance what their brothers had suffered." Fifthly, 
if the Church had to define what constituted heresy, that Chris- 
tians may avoid it, it was the civil authorities, as guardians of 
public security, that inflicted the penalties incurred by outrages 
on society. As proof of this, we refer him to the able letters of 
the Count de Maistre, which we have no time to do more than 
name. Sixthly, the Protestant Churches of England and Scotland 
on either side of the Atlantic, in later centuries and years, have sins 
enough to answer for on this charge. Finally, Mr. Vickers, and 
all who think with him, having had, like us, Catholic ancestors, 
are bound as much as we are to apologize for their conduct, if 
apology it needs. We are no advocates of coercion. God and 
the Church allow men to think. Man, if he think not, is man 
no more. But God and the Church forbid man to think evil. 
Here is the distinction which Mr. Vickers has not the sagacity to 
see nor the candor to acknowledge. God in the seventeenth chap- 
ter of Deuteronomy, in the Decalogue, and in the New Testament, 
forbids him to prefer his own judgment to that of the authority 
which He has commissioned to teach him, forbids him to covet, 
and if he do, He reserves the right to punish him. So the Church 
can not, any more than God, prevent man from thinking ; but she 
warns him that the " Searcher of hearts " knows when he willfully 
thinks evil, as Cain did, and for this shall "sin be at the door." 

6th. I reiterate, there is no power, human or divine that forces 
a man to believe a religion, or any thing else, against his own 
honest and enlightened convictions ; and, at the same time, I 
maintain with the Pope it is a damnable error to teach that Pa- 
ganism or idolatry is true, that Mormonism or Mohammedanism 
is true, that Christ is a fiction, hell a fiction, or the Bible a crutch, 



90 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



even when man's perverted reason leads him to such ridiculous 
and false conclusions. 

7th. I hold that it is an error to maintain that the Church 
ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the 
Church, for these should act in harmony like soul and body, and 
God declares that kings should be the nursing fathers and queens 
the nurses of his Church or people. (Is. xlix : 23.) But, in 
truth, the Church needeth no such nursing. It succeeded during 
the first three centuries, not only without the aid of kings, but 
in spite of their hostility ; it survived the ten bloody persecutions 
of the " Beast n of Paganism with its ten horns ; it suffered cru- 
elty from the Arian kings — from the Henrys, the Barbarossas ; it 
has suffered awfully in the suppression of its religious orders, the 
confiscation of its property, the incarceration and death of its 
ministers in Spain, in Portugal, in England, in Italy, in South 
American provinces, in Mexico, in France. It is even now suf- 
fering in every one of those countries, showing what the union of 
Church and State — not as the State ought to be, but as it is — does 
for her. And when it pretended to act in concert with her, its 
friendship was often worse to her than its enmity, it made her 
responsible for its misdeeds, it stifled her in its embrace. I, 
therefore, want no such union. I deprecate it. 

8th. I propose to circulate the whole Bible, the true Bible, the 
Holy Scriptures; to place a copy of these in every Catholic 
home. But not a mutilated Bible — not a Bible from which have 
been torn the books of Judith, Esther, Tobias, Baruch, Ecclesi- 
asticus, Wisdom, three chapters of Daniel, and the Maccabees — 
not a mistranslated perverted Bible, such as the Pope has never 
condemned in language too severe. 

And yet it is a singular inconsistency in Mr. Vickers to say a 
word about the Bible when he says with Luther, the Epistle of 
St. James, which Protestants, as well as Catholics, retain, is an 
" Epistle of Straw," that another book of the sacred canon contains 
" bits of fun ;" and all of which, straw or no straw, fun or no fun, 
Mr. Vickers calls a crutch, to be cast away in the name of that 
reason which Luther called a " harlot." Henceforth we leave 
him in the hands of the orthodox ministers of Cincinnati and the 
Young Men's Christian and Biblical Societies. Let them look to it. 

9th. The Jesuits. They need no defense of mine. They have 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 91 



filled the world with their scholarship, their science, their mis- 
sionary labors, their saintly men — like St. Francis Xavier. 
Postulants, before they enter their houses, know that walking in 
his footsteps they can not go astray; that the order was and is 
approved by the Church; that the doors and windows are open 
for them to leave it when they please ; and that during the long 
years they are required to remain novices or scholastics, they have 
to study the constitutions ; and, finally, vow obedience only when 
they have been taught and convinced that superiors can not 
oblige them contrary to the known will of God. 

10th. The gentleman, as well as certain newspapers, i. e., the 
Nation, pretends to place me in opposition to the Encyclical and 
syllabus, and threatens me with Pontifical displeasure. This is 
another instance of his lack of good faith. He knows that I 
said in my pastoral of the judgment of his holiness in the en- 
cyclical and syllabus, " We receive it implicitly, we bow to it rev- 
erently, we embrace it cordially, we hail it gratefully. To us it is 
as the voice of God on Sinai, on the Jordan, on Thebor." And 
we took further the superfluous pains to show that every error 
condemned in the syllabus was, as the Pope declared it to be, 
" pernicious." 

11th. The hiatus in the letter of Mr. Yickers, Cincinnati Ga- 
zette, 22d of November, written and published when I was at- 
tending to official duties in St. Mary's, Auglaize county, in Mid- 
dletown, Dayton, Urbana, can be filled satisfactorily to every 
candid mind with answers contained in my letter published in 
the Catholic Telegraph, of the 13th of November, concerning 
Firmilian, Augustine, Aquinas. There is no necessity of follow- 
ing the gentleman in his endless repetitions. But that he may 
understand how far I am from reticence or concealment, I an- 
swer as categorically, as pertinently, as closely to the question as 
human language can answer, that Augustine, Aquinas, Popes, 
and Cardinals did teach that the secular power was bound to re- 
press heresy ; for it was in their days, as well as since and before, 
connected with disturbance of the public peace, with outrages of 
society, with gross violation of decency and morals. Is this what 
he calls altissimum silentium? or can he deny that I answered this 
question, illustrating it with the case of the Mormons more than 
once before ? 



92 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



12th. I answer that I believe the saints canonized by the im- 
mortal and saintly Pio Nono in 1867, deserve the honor, whatever 
brutal names Mr. Vickers may choose to call them. 

13th. Instead of having any thing to retract, I must add to 
what I have said of Giordano Bruni, on the faith of a most relia- 
ble historian, De Faller, in his biographie universelle. He had, 
after his apostasy, in consequence of his quarrel with Calvin and 
Beza, to fly from Geneva, and Paris, and Wittenburgh. In this 
last city he turned Lutheran, and finding even this Protestant city 
too hot for him, on account of his turbulent spirit and his open 
denial of all the most important revealed truths held by Jews and 
Christians, he traveled through different places in Germany. He 
went to Pome, of course, to circulate the books which, under the 
patronage of the delectable Virgin Queen Elizabeth and Sir Philip 
Sidney, he had published in London, on the expulsion of the tri- 
umphant beast, and there met the fate he deserved. 

14th. And this caps the climax of Mr. Vickers' ignorance, in- 
consistency, and lack of logic. He argues that if I claim for the 
Church the credit of Bacon's science and Luther's learning, " I 
must," pari ratione, " for a like reason, also give her credit for 
Leahy's murder." Now, reasoning like this would make Christ 
as responsible for the treason and suicide of Judas, as he was de- 
serving of the homage of men and angels for the teachings of the 
inspired Evangelists and the Apostles. Such is Mr. Vickers' 
ratiocination. 

15th. I have thus, on my side, and in my own better right, 
shown " what this controversy has settled." And I am perfectly 
satisfied with the result. I have received " no threatening letters," 
but oral and written felicitations from both Protestants and Cath- 
olics. By means of it, minds previously impervious to truth, have 
had their eyes opened to the light. They have seen how the man 
who taunted me with opposition to the circulation of the Bible, 
has himself learned from it that " Christ is a fiction," and the 
" Bible a crutch," that he stalks every Sunday with bold impiety 
into Hopkins' Hall to teach these truths to a Cincinnati audience ; 
and that all the Catholics and Protestants of this city, who search 
the Scriptures and trust to Christ for salvation, indulge illusory 
expectations of happiness, follow false lights, and stand but on 
broken reeds. Now, I have placed, disregarding personal insult, 



ARCHBISHOP PURCELL'S REPLY. 93 



his startling impieties in their native deformity before the public, 
so that none may be deceived by him but those that choose to be 
deceived. And having thus marked him with the "foenum in 
Cornu," I say not only to Catholics, Protestants, and Christians, 
but also to Israelites, " Hunc tui caveto." 

16th. Calvin not only burned Servetus, but wrote a book to 
justify the act and to prove that it was lawful so to punish here- 
tics. Aretius, in his book De Supplicio, contends that Gentilis 
was justly put to death by the Calvinistic magistrates of Berne. 
And Beza undertakes to prove the same thesis more at length in 
his book " De Hereticis a Magistrata Punicendis." These reform- 
ers thought, with Bellarmine and others, that if men were free 
thinkers they had to keep their free thinking to themselves and 
not disturb the peace of society by broaching new doctrines or 
false religions. 

17th. The word "persequar," in what used to be the Bishop's 
oath, meant only to pursue with argument, in which sense the word 
is frequently used. But it is now twenty years since the Fathers 
of the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore objected to the use 
of the old formula which admits of an odious sense, and the new 
formula is this : 

"Ego N. electus Ecclesia? N. ab hac hora in antea obediens ero 
beato Petro Apostolo, sanctseque Romanse Eeclesise, et Beatissimo 
Patri N. Papse N. suisque successoribus canonice intrantibus. Pa- 
patum Pomanum adjutor eis ero ad retinendum et defendendum, 
salvo meo ordine. Jura, honores, privilegia et auctoritatem sanctaB 
Pomanse Ecclesise, Papae, et suceessorum prsedictorum, conservare, 
defendere, promovere curabo." 

f J. B. PURCELL, 

Archbishop of Cincinnati. 



Note to page 87. — Archbishop Purcell says in his last reply to Mr. Tickers, 
which we published yesterday: "The Gazette did not publish my last two let- 
ters," and, therefore, he thinks that our readers have not heard the other side. 
The Archbishop is mistaken. We have published all his articles. We desire 
our readers to see them, and we think they are interested in them. In this we 
are aware that our custom is not Catholic ; for not one of the articles of Mr. 
Vickers has been published in the Catholic Telegraph, which has been the or- 
gan of all the Archbishop's part of the discussion. " Audi alteram partem'' is 
good for the Archbishop to quote. — Cincinnati Gazette^ Bee. 6, 1867 



94 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



FINAL REJOINDER OF REV. THOMAS TICKERS. 

[Published in the Cincinnati Gazette, December — , 1867.] 

To the Editor of the Cincinnati Gazette: 

If there were any Deed of excuse for the postponement of my 
reply to the last archiepiscopal eruption, which appeared in your 
columns on December 5th, it would doubtless be sufficient to say, 
that all my spare time has been consumed in preparing the whole 
controversy for publication in a more permanent form. I trust 
that by this act I shall make some slight atonement to the Arch- 
bishop for all the mental perturbation of which he has been the 
victim and I the unhappy cause. Xow that he has, " on his side, 
and in his own better right (!) , shown what this controversy has set- 
tled," — now that he has publicly, solemnly, and with marked em- 
phasis, declared that he is " perfectly satisfied with the result," — 
now that he boasts of having received " oral and written felicita- 
tions, from both Protestants and Catholics," in view of this 
result, — now that he is happy in the conviction that, by means 
of this controversy, " minds previously impervious to truth, have 
had their eyes opened to the light," — now that he triumphs in the 
proud consciousness of having placed my " startling impieties (!) 
in their native deformity before the public : " it will certainly be 
a source of peculiar satisfaction and delight to him to learn that I 
have taken such pains to carry the controversy beyond the limits 
of mere ephemeral and local interest, to spread abroad the fame of 
his splendid moral and intellectual heroism, and thus, so far as in 
me lies, to erect to him monumentum aere perennius — a monument 
more enduring than even his brass ! At any rate, whatever else 
may be his feeling, he will certainly perceive that I honor and 
apply the rule, " audiatur et altera pars" 

The Archbishop follows an Example. — With these pre- 
liminary remarks, we will now proceed to notice the salient points 
of the above-named production. The equanimity of the Arch- 
bishop evidently received a somewhat severe shock when he read 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 95 



my opinion as to what the controversy had settled, for he immedi- 
ately begins to rave about " Punchinello " (I suppose he means 
Pulcinella), " self-glorification," etc., and says that I "forgot all the 
ignorance, inconsistency, and false statements I had made in my 
encounter with him," and says, also, in the same breath, "I shall 
follow his example " !! Probably all who read this controversy 
will agree that, whatever example the Archbishop may have fol- 
lowed in these several directions, he has shown himself an apt 
scholar. I shall not, however, bandy words with him on these 
points; those who are qualified to judge will soon be able to form 
a well-considered judgment for themselves, without his or my 
further assistance. In glancing over this whole controversy, which 
I have before me as I write, I find that I have but one statement 
to retract. One formal misstatement I did make, and I here form- 
ally retract it, viz., that the Catholio Telegraph bore the name of 
Archbishop Purcell as its principal editor; 1 say formal misstate- 
ment, because the Archbishop has not only never denied that he 
controls its columns, but he has shown very conclusively that he 
does. With this single exception, I have made no statements but 
such as I have abundantly substantiated. 

An Aechiepiscopal Mare's Nest. — At the laying of the cor- 
ner-stone of St. John's, I said I had been " chosen to express the 
sympathy of the American population of our city with the occa- 
sion." A little more attention to the ordinary rules of grammar, 
which I have already several times recommended, would have 
taught the Archbishop the propriety of reserving such expectora- 
tions as are contained in the first and second paragraphs of his 
last reply for a more private occasion. Did I say that I had been 
chosen by the American population of our city, either in conven- 
tion or out of it ? Did I not say expressly in my sermon of Oc- 
tober 13th, that I had been chosen by the St. John's Society? 
What a prodigious waste of rhetoric about Episcopalians, Presby- 
terians, Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics, whose " credentials " 
I neither asked nor needed. 

" Endless Repetitions." — In the Archbishop's eleventh par- 
agraph, where it is exceedingly inconvenient for him to follow 
me, he says " there is no necessity of following the gentleman in 
his endless repetitions ; " but he is never weary of repeating such 
puerilities as are contained in the third and fourth paragraphs, 



96 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



concerning the Immaculate Conception and the " freemen of 
Ohio." Of course, every one knows that his last article was 
written mainly for home consumption; that is, for the special 
benefit of his "beloved Catholic flock;" but one would think 
that even they would, by this time, see through the hollowness 
of such petty artifices. I neither misrepresented the new dogma, 
nor was I ignorant of its proper content and import. How could 
I be, with the papal bull — " Inejfahilis" — before me? Xor did I 
" dictate " to any man how he should vote at the last election, for 
I said nothing about it until it w T as all over. 

Free Thinking and Evil Thinking. — I have no heart to 
discuss at length the utterly dishonest and mendacious character 
of the sixth and seventh paragraphs ; it will be apparent to every 
one who has read the discussion with attention. I will simply call 
attention to one or two points, concerning which the Archbishop 
has made some really startling announcements. In the first place, 
we are indebted to him for a definition of " free thought." He 
says, with unwearying (although somewhat wearisome) repetition, 
that "thought is essentially free;" "God made it free, and no 
power can chain it;" "neither God nor the Church can enslave 
it ; " " man, if he think not, is man no more," etc., etc. I suppose 
all this ecclesiastical rhetoric, translated into plain, historical, mat- 
ter-of-fact language, means simply that Huss and Bruno enjoyed, 
w T hile the flames were crackling around them, the inestimable and 
inalienable privilege of unlimited freedom of thought ! Certainly, 
this astounding discovery of the Archbishop's must have cost him 
many sleepless nights and great expenditure of " midnight oil." 

But, on the other hand, although " men could think and speak 
as they pleased," " when they thought and spoke what was wrong, 
the Church had a right to tell them so " — " God and the Church for- 
bid man to think evil." To " think evil " means here, in plain 
and unequivocal language, to think contrary to the will of the 
Catholic Church, which claims to be the infallible exponent of the 
will of God. How variable the will of this " immutable" church 
is may be seen from an admission made by the " Dublin Review " 
— a magazine so ultramontane in its Catholicism that it openly pro- 
claims the infallibility of the pope. In an article on the Encyclical 
and Syllabus, in the April number, 1865, may be found the follow- 
ing words: "How was the doctrine of Our Lady's Immaculate 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 97 



Conception circumstanced during that eventful December of 1854? 
On the 7th of that month, no Catholic was permitted to stigmatize 
its denial as unsound; on the 8th, all Catholics were required to re- 
gard such denial as heretical." Therefore we see that the standard of 
right thinking is liable to constant change ; that, in fact, what is right 
thinking and what wrong thinking, what is good thinking and 
what evil thinking, depends wholly upon the whim of this mutable 
" immutable " Church. On the 7th of December, 1854, one could 
declare the Virgin Mary not to have been immaculately conceived 
without even incurring reproof; on the day following, whoever 
made such a declaration was " in danger of hell fire " — a heretic 
and reprobate. The right "to tell men so" when they "think 
evil " is a euphemism which the Archbishop himself has explained 
to mean the right to burn men alive — a right which, as he expressly 
says, was not only properly exercised against Bruno by Pope Clem- 
ent VIII, in the year 1600, but might also be properly exercised 
against Garibaldi by Pius IX, in the year 1867 ; and yet the Arch- 
bishop has the effrontery to say again and again that he is " no ad- 
vocate of coercion." 

Archbishop PurcelFs theory of free thought may be summed up in 
these words : No one — not God and not the Church — could prevent a 
man from thinking and asserting the dogma of the Immaculate Con- 
ception to be, like a good many other dogmas of the Romish Church, 
an absurdity, or, in the classic language of Gregory XVI, " insane 
nonsense;" but, if he did think and say so, the "holy" Church 
might burn him for it without any detriment to his freedom of 
thought ! Of course, the Archbishop would be very careful not to 
undertake the burning process in Cincinnati (even in Garibaldi's 
case) ; the punishment here, and at present, would be an impotent 
anathema hurled from the Cathedral on the corner of Plum and 
Eighth, coupled, perhaps, with a foaming denunciation in the Cath- 
olic Telegraph. 

Catholic Ancestors. — Another remarkable point which the 
Archbishop repeatedly makes is the following- : " Mr. Vickers, and 
all who think with him, having had, like us, Catholic ancestors, 
are bound as much as we are to apologize for their conduct, if 
apology it needs." I most respectfully decline the honor. Dirty 
Peter Reverendus ac Eruditissimus Dens and the still dirtier 
Holy Father, Alexander VI, were no ancestors of mine, and I by 
7 



98 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



no means feel called upon to apologize for them. On the contrary, 
I hate and detest all such, ancestors or no ancestors. 

And, furthermore, when, in the 16th paragraph of his reply, 
Archbishop Purcell attempts to nullify the effect of my quotations 
from Bellarmin, Dens, Gregory XVI, and Cardinal Pacca, by 
showing that Calvin, Aretius, and Beza also asserted that it was 
lawful to punish heretics, I wish to remind him of two things : 
first, I have never undertaken to defend the Protestant Church 
against the charge of persecution for opinion's sake, as he has done 
in the case of the Catholic Church ; secondly, Calvin, Aretius, and 
Beza did not, like Gregory XVI, and Cardinal Pacca, live in the 
nineteenth century, nor were their treatises on the punishment of 
heresy adopted, within the present century, by any body of Prot- 
estant ministers as " the best works and the safest guides in theol- 
ogy," as was the " Theologia " of Dens by the Catholic clergy of 
Dublin, in the year 1808. In general, I may remark concerning 
all the Archbishop's tirades against the persecuting spirit of Prot- 
est autism, that they would sound better and have more weight if 
they came from another source. 

Loripedem rectus derideat, ^Ethiopem albus. 
Quis tulerit Grracchos de seditione querentes? 
Quis coeluin terris non misceat, et mare coelo, 
Si far displiceat Verri. homicida Miloni ? 
Clodius accuset moechos, Catilina Cethegum ? 

The True Religion — In the 6th paragraph there is a some- 
what remarkable instance of that " reticence," which the Arch- 
bishop says is so foreign to him. He says : " I maintain with 
the Pope it is a damnable error to teach that Paganism or idol- 
atry is true, that Mormonism or Mohammedanism is true," etc., 
etc. Is it not also a damnable error to teach that Episcopalianism, 
Presbvterianism, Methodism, in fact any other ism but Catholi- 
cism, is true? Was the Archbishop thinking of the "oral and 
written felicitations" when he omitted these from his list? 

Church and State. — The readers of this controversy have 
already had so many brilliant archiepiscopal combinations of gram- 
mar, logic, and morals, that they will hardly be surprised at any 
thing new in this direction, however startling. Perhaps, how- 
ever, they will be interested to see, in syllogistic form, the sub- 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 99 



stance of what the Archbishop has said on the union of Church 
and State. Here it is : 

1. "It is an error to maintain that the Church ought to be sep- 
arated from the State, and the State from the Church." (§ 7, 
p. 90.) 

Archbishop Purcell says : " I do not want a union of Church 
and State — I deprecate such a union." (§ 3, p. 32.) 

Therefore, Archbishop Purcell, according to his own showing, 
maintains an error. 

2. "It is an error to maintain that the Church ought to be sep- 
arated from the State, and the State from the Church/' i. e. Church 
and State ought to be united. 

Archbishop Purcell says : " I do not want a union of Church 
and State — I deprecate such a union." 

Therefore, Archbishop Purcell, according to his own showing, 
does not want, deprecates, what ought to be. 

Now, either the Archbishop is satisfied with these conclusions, 
or the bald declaration (published in the Telegraph, of October 
16th) that he did not want a union of Church and State, but 
deprecated such a union, was a subterfuge, intended to convey a 
wrong impression, and thus to deceive his readers. 

The Bible. — The ravings of Archbishop Purcell, in his last 
and previous replies, concerning my views of the Bible, are utterly 
unworthy of notice ; either from intentional wickedness or from 
utter incapacity to understand them, he so distorts and disfigures 
them, that no sane man would recognize them again. I will, how- 
ever, here say for his special information, that should he desire to 
preach from my pulpit some Sunday, he will find on the desk " the 
whole Bible," and not the "emasculated (!), mutilated" Scriptures, 
about which he makes such a pother, and he will be at liberty to 
interpret or misinterpret it as he chooses, provided he docs not 
compel those who listen to him to accept his exegesis. Further- 
more, when the Archbishop proceeds to place, and really places, " a 
copy of the whole Bible in every Catholic home," and does not 
merely boast of what he "proposed" or "proposes" to do, there 
will be no more occasion for complaints, such as I have personally 
heard, during the progress of this discussion, from members of his 
"beloved Catholic flock" — that they are not allowed to read the 
Bible. Let the Archbishop look to it — he is abundantly able — 



100 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



and not wait for some Protestant Bible Society to do it for 
him. 

The Jesuits once more. — I have already had such fre- 
quent occasion to point out the equivocations and subterfuges 
of the Archbishop that the work has become disgusting to me. 
Still, there are a few more cases to be noticed, and one of 
these concerns the Jesuits. At one time he asserts that the 
Jesuits "take no unconditional vows," that "the doors and 
windows are open, and they may leave" whenever they please; 
now he finds it convenient to let us infer (what we already 
knew) that it is only the "postulants," or novices and scho- 
lastics, who are allowed to leave; but when, after studying the 
constitutions, where they learn that they are to have no will 
of their own, but to become as a stick (baculus), a corpse (cada- 
ver), in the hands of the Superior — when, after this, they take the 
solemn vow of obedience, there is no escape, except as the criminal 
escapes from the penitentiary. And what does the Archbishop 
say when I ask him, before praising too highly the morality of 
the Jesuits, to look into three Jesuit manuals of morals which I 
name to him? He says he will not follow me, where I seem 
so anxious to lead, " into the discussion of immoralities so falsely 
attributed to the writings of Catholic societies or theologians!" 
Now the three works I named, and from which I quoted the be- 
ginnings of three sentences in the original Latin, not daring to 
translate their disgusting obscenity, were not only all written by 
men eminent in the Society of Jesus, but were all issued with the 
express approbation of the " holy " Church, and were all intended 
for the use of young students as guides to the duties of the future 
pastoral office, and particularly to the duties of the confessional ! 

The Archbishop and the Encyclical. — It is very evi- 
dent that the Archbishop is in some trepidation as to his po- 
sition toward the Encyclical and Syllabus. The contradiction 
is so glaring that all his attempts to gloss it over only make 
the matter worse, as I have shown in regard to the union of 
Church and State. He took very good care to make no reply 
to the letter of Mr. Paul Mohr, in which his relation to the 
"Apostolic See" was discussed with such merciless perspicuity. 
Of course, as I have already said, I can only congratulate Arch- 
bishop Purcell if he honestly differs from documents so utterly 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 101 



subversive of the welfare of the individual and of society, as I 
take the Encyclical and Syllab.us to be, but I abhor and detest 
the foul hypocrisy which, bitterly hating the whole foundation 
on which modern society and modern science rest, seeks, by cun- 
ning temporization, and artful tergiversation, to gain a firm foot- 
hold there where an open and straightforward course would sub- 
ject it to universal scorn and contempt. 

"The Hiatus/' — When Archbishop Purcell said that "the 
hiatus" in my letter of November 22d, could be filled "satis- 
factorily to every candid rnind" with answers contained in his 
letter of November 13th, he probably did it in the hope that 
the public had already forgotten what he did say; at any rate, 
he himself either no longer had any distinct remembrance of 
the contents of said letter, or he uttered a deliberate falsehood. 
I refer "candid minds" to the letters in question (pp. 70, 78). 
And even now, when the Archbishop pretends to answer "as 
categorically, as pertinently, as closely to the question as human 
language can answer," in order "that I may understand how 
far he is from reticence or concealment," does he answer the 
questions I asked him? Not one of them ! But he forges a ques- 
tion I never did ask him — gives an answer to the same which is 
full of historical perversion, and thus his readers are led astray 
again. 

"Saint" Peter de Arbtjes. — Although I asked an entirely 
different question, which the Archbishop did not see fit to an- 
swer — namely, whether he personally had any thing to do with 
the canonization of a certain bloody inquisitor — he now volunteers 
the information that he " believes the saints canonized by the im- 
mortal and saintly Pio Nono, in 1867, deserve the honor!" Now, 
I have the decree of canonization before me, and the name of Don 
Pedro Arbues de Epila is the second on the list of new saints. 
Perhaps the character of this very man, coupled with the in- 
dorsement which he receives at the hands of Archbishop Purcell, 
will give us some clue to the quality of the Archbishop's own 
moral judgment. 

It is well known that the pretext, on which the Inquisition in 
Spain began its diabolical work, was that, among many of the 
Spanish Jews, who, in the year 1391, had been compelled by the 
Church to abandon their ancestral faith, there was still a secret 



102 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



attachment to the religion of their fathers. This was, of course, 
horrible and not to be endured. After having been introduced 
into the other Spanish provinces, the Inquisition was, finally, in 
the year 1480 ; introduced into the province of Arragon, and here 
it was that Arbues distinguished himself as one of the most piti- 
less of the inquisitors. Moreover, the Inquisition appeared at that 
time in its most hateful and immoral form, namely, as a financial 
resource, for the royal exchequer was to be enriched by the for- 
tunes of all who were declared guilty. Neither the names of the 
accusers, nor the accusations themselves, were communicated to the 
accused ; confessions were pressed out of them by the most excru- 
ciating tortures, and thousands were burned alive. The persecu- 
tion extended even to the posterity of the condemned ; that is to 
say, persons who had long been dead were condemned for heresy, 
and their children were, in consequence, deprived of their property 
and declared infamous. The people were driven to desperation ; 
an attack was made on Arbues, the chief sinner, who received a 
deadly wound and died shortly afterward. The authority for these 
facts is not an enemy of the Church, but the Grand Inquisitor 
Paramo, whose work : De origine et progressu officii sandae inqui- 
sitionis (Madrid, 1598), was the first history of the Inquisition 
based upon the archives. 

Now, Archbishop Purcell is continually declaiming against me 
because I rake the "kennels of history/' as he calls it, to prove 
that the Catholic Church not only does not tolerate freedom of 
thought, but persecutes it wherever she finds it, according to the 
nature and extent of her control over the secular power. He first 
gives us to understand that persecution is wholly foreign to the 
Church, and then says that, even if she ever did persecute, Protest- 
ants are just as much bound to apologize for it as he; that, in other 
words, we are equally answerable for the crimes of a common an- 
cestry. Does Archbishop Purcell, in this individual instance, 
mean to say that Protestants (and perhaps Jews also) ought to re- 
joice in the canonization of Don Pedro Arbues, and say that he 
" deserves the honor ? " Is this the archiepiscopal form of " apology " 
for the want of enlightenment in former ages ? I am afraid sim- 
ple-minded people will be inclined to lay aside all euphemisms, 
and say that when, "after mature deliberation " (matura delibera- 
tionepraekibita), after having " often implored the divine assistance " 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 103 



(Divina ope saepius implorata), and " with the advice of the Ven- 
erable Brethren of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinals, Patri- 
archs, Archbishops, and Bishops, assembled in Rome " (cle Verier- 
abilium Fratrum Nostrum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalium, 
Patriarcharum, Archiepiscoporum et Episcoporum in Urbe existent- 
turn consilio), Pius IX, who claims to represent the universal 
Catholic Church, proclaims the bloody villain Arbues to be a saint, 
this is a more authoritative and more significant manifestation of 
the real animus of that Church than any utterance in favor of the 
liberty of conscience made by a mere subordinate prelate, even if 
such utterance were meant in good faith ; but when Archbishop 
Purcell, after all his vaunting declamation, comes forward and 
boldly asserts that Arbues is worthy of saintship, they will say he 
simply eats his own words, and again admits (as already in the 
case of Bruno and Garibaldi) that every thing he has said in oppo- 
sition to my original thesis is false. 

Bruno alias Bruni. — The last word of the Archbishop con- 
cerning Bruno confirms a suspicion which his first utterance in 
regard to him awakened in my mind. It is now perfectly evident 
that, when Bruno's name was first introduced into the controversy, 
the Archbishop rushed to the first best encyclopeadia for informa- 
tion. This is the explanation of the childish and ridiculous stories 
about Bruno's quarreling with Calvin and Beza, and being obliged 
to fly from Geneva, his turning Lutheran, and his banishment 
from Wittenberg, etc. This is also the reason why De Faller 
must be elevated, by archiepiscopal authority, to the rank of an 
historian, and, indeed, of a " most reliable " one ; doubtless the 
Biographie TJniverselle will henceforth be regarded in the " archdio- 
cese " of Cincinnati, if nowhere else, as final authority in matters 
of history. This is also the explanation of that new specimen of 
the Archbishop's erudition, that Bruno's " Italian name " was 
Bruni. Concerning this latter point, I would simply say in pass- 
ing, that if the Archbishop is desirous of consulting the only exist- 
ing Italian edition of Bruno's works, he will find the same in my 
library, and the title is as follows : " Opere di Giordano Brimo" 

An Archiepiscopal anti-climax. — In the 14th paragraph 
the Archbishop is again jubilant over something which he consid- 
ers "caps the climax of Mr. Vickers' ignorance, inconsistency, and 
lack of logic," and is so blind as not to see that the passage he 



104 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



cites from my reply of November 22, was intended as a persiflage 
of his ratiocination. I trust the Archbishop, who took the liberty 
of playing upon my name, will not take it amiss if I designate the 
same as the argumentum ad porcellum, and ask him to make a note 
of it for future use. The plain grammatical and logical import of 
what I said was this : that it would be, historically and psycho- 
logically, just as allowable to vindicate to the Catholic Church all 
the credit for Leahy's murder as to vindicate to her all the credit 
for Bacon's science and Luther's learning. To mention but a sin- 
gle fact : Who made it possible for Luther to translate the books 
of the Old Testament into his mother tongue? did the Catholic 
Church ? History tells us that the " holy " Church, instead of 
teaching her monks Hebrew, was, at that very time, inveighing 
against Reuchlin, as in league with the devil, because he sought 
to revive the study of the Hebrew language and literature. Lu- 
ther learnt his Hebrew mainly from a Jew ! Does the Archbishop 
now comprehend the import of what I said ? If he does not, I 
will give him the benefit of a still further example and tell him, 
that any reasoning which, in accordance with the laws of history 
and psychology, would make " Christ " " deserving of the homage 
of men and angels for the teachings of the inspired Evangelists 
and Apostles," would also " make him responsible for the treason 
and suicide of Judas," providing the terms " deserving of hom- 
age" and A responsible" are taken to be equivalents. While again 
recommending to him the study of some elementary treatise on 
grammar and logic, let me also suggest the propriety of his taking 
some lessons in style, from Horace or somebody else, before he 
again speaks of " marking " a person " with the foenum in eornu." 
However, I can not but thank him for the compliment he pays me, 
in the quotation of these words, blundering and unintentional 
though it is, and meant to be exactly the reverse. " Foenum habet 
in eornu; longe fuge" That is to say, "I have found him to be 
a dangerous opponent ; it is better to keep a long way out of his 
reaeh. ,y " Hunc tu, Romane, cavetof" is the genuine text of 
Horace, which the Archbishop took care to " emasculate." 

The Bishop's Oath. — The concluding paragraph of the Arch- 
bishop's reply contains two specimens of polemical unfairness (to 
use an expression altogether too mild to suit the case), which 
completely eclipse all his previous prevarications. In the first 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 105 



place, he asserts, with startling audacity, that the verb persequi 
" in what used to be the Bishop's oath, meant only to pursue with 
argument, in which sense the word is frequently used." I am 
sorry to be obliged again to propose an unpleasant alternative to 
the Archbishop : either he uttered a conscious untruth, or he did 
not know what he was talking about. Every man who knows 
any thing at all about the Latin language, knows that the verb 
persequi, unmodified, as. it occurs in the formula which I cited, 
never means, and never can mean " to pursue with argument," and 
I defy the Archbishop to produce any Latin author by whom 
it is so used. 

" But," secondly the Archbishop says, " it is now twenty years 
since the Fathers of the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore 
objected to the use of the old formula which admits of an odious 
sense." So, it does really " admit of" an odious sense ? And 
the "Fathers of the Sixth Provincial Council" objected to it? 
And so it seems, after all, according to the Archbishop's own 
showing, that down to the year 1846 every bishop (even in this 
country) swore on his bended knees, and with his hands resting 
on the Gospel (which teaches us to love our enemies, and to do 
good to them that hate us), — swore a solemn oath to persecute and 
assail all heretics to the extent of his power I ! In the first place 
the word has no such odious meaning, and in the second place we 
objected to it because it has! O, immaculate logician! 

But, still further, what did the Archbishop mean by the 
phrases : " what used to be the Bishop's oath," and " new form- 
ula " ? There must be something wrong in his chronology, as 
well as in the various other departments I have mentioned. His 
so-called "new formula" appears in the proceedings of the Sixth 
Provincial Council of Baltimore, held in 1846, and my old 
formula, "what used to be the Bishop's oath," appears in the 
Pontificalia Romana, issued by the Church itself, and printed in 
Mechlin in 1855 ! ! So the old formula is actually newer by 
nine years than the " neio" one! Or, does the one, holy, im- 
mutable Catholic Church require one thing on the continent of 
Europe, and another and different thing in the United States? 

We are not left without explanation. And this time I have 
no alternative to offer. This time the Archbishop is manifestly 
and palpably dishonest. He says, the Sixth Baltimore Council 



106 



THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



objected to the "old formula/ 7 and then pretends to give the 
oath now required, introducing it with the words : " and the new 
formula is this" (see p. 93). Now, inasmuch as I find the name 
of " Joannes Baptista, Episcopus Cincinnatensis" among those 
who subscribed to the decrees of the Council in question, and as 
the so-called " new " formula is the one now used in this country 
in the consecration of bishops, he must know precisely what that 
formula is; and yet what does he do? He says, "here is the new 
formula," and he intentionally conceals more than three-fourths of it! 
He conceals, especially, the passage which proves conclusively that 
there is no essential difference between the "new" and the "old." 
I shall take the liberty of communicating the whole with a 
translation. What is omitted by the Archbishop is included in 
brackets, and the passage in small capitals is the one just alluded 
to. It is found in the reports of the Baltimore Councils, en- 
titled : Concilia Provincialia, Baltimori habita ab anno 1829 
usque ad annum 1849, 2d ed. Bait. 1851, pp. 258, 259, and is as 
follows : 



Ego, N., electus eeclesiae N., ab hac 
hora in antea obediens ero beato Petro 
Apostolo, sanctaeque Romanae Eeclesiae, 
et Beatissimo PatriN., PapaeN., suisque 
successoribus canonice intrantibus. Pa- 
patum Romanum adjutor eis ero ad reti- 
nendum et defendendum, salvo meo or- 
dine. Jura, honores, privilegia et auc- 
toritatem sanctae Romanae Eeclesiae, 
Papae, et successorvm praedictorum, 
conservare, defendere, promovere curabo. 
[Regulas sanctorum Patrum, decre- 
ta, ordinationes, setj disposition es et 
mandata apostolica. totis viribus ob- 
servabo, et faciam ab alus observari. 
Vocatus ad synodum,veniam,nisipraeped- 
itusfuero canonicapraepeditione. Aposto- 
lorum limina singulis decenniis personal- 
iter per me ipsum visitabo ; et Beatissimo 
Patri Nostro, N., ac successoribus prae- 
fatis rationem de toto meo pastorali of- 
ficio, ac de rebus omnibus ad meae Eecle- 
siae statum, ad cleri et populi disciplin- 
am, animarum denique, quae meae fid 'ei 
traditae sunt, salutem quovis modo per- 
tinentibus ; et vicissim mandata Apostol- 
ica humiliter recipiam, et quam diligen- 
tissime exequar. Quod si legitimo im- 
pedimento detentus fuero, praefata omnia 
adimplebo per certum Nuntium ad hoc 



I, N., bishop-elect of the Church of 
N., will, from this time forward, be obe- 
dient to the blessed Apostle Peter, and 
to the holy Roman Church, and to the 
Most Holy Father N., Pope N., and to 
his successors, canonically instituted. 
I will assist them in upholding and de- 
fending the Roman Papacy, saving my 
own order. I will take care to preserve, 
defend, and promote the rights, honors, 
privileges, and authority of the holy 
Roman Church, of the Pope, and his 
aforesaid successors. [The rules of 
the holy Fathers, the decrees, ordi- 
nances or disposals, and Apostolic 
mandates, i will observe with my 
whole strength, and cause them to 
be observed by others. Called to the 
synod, 1 will come, unless prevented by 
a canonical hindrance. The threshold 
of the apostles I will visit, in my own 
person, every ten years, and to Our 
Most Holy Father, N., or aforesaid 
successors, I will render an account 
of my whole pastoral office, and of all 
things pertaining to the state of my 
Church, the discipline of the clergy and 
people, and, finally, of whatever per- 
tains in any way to the salvation of the 
souls intrusted to me ; and, on the other 



FINAL REJOINDER OF MR. VICKERS. 



107 



speciale mandatum habentem, dioecesan- 
um sacerdotem, vel per aliquem alium 
presbyterum saecularem, vel regular em, 
spectatae probitatis et religionis, de su- 
pradictis omnibus plene instructum. 



Possessiones vero ad mensam meam 
pertinentes non vendam, nee donabo, 
neque impignorabo, nee de novo infeu- 
dabo, vel aliquo modo alienabo, etiam 
cum Consensu Capituli Ecclesiae meae, 
inconsulto Romano Pontijice. Et si ad 
aliquam alienationem devenero, poenas 
in qvadam super hoc edita constitutione 
contentas, eo ipso incurrere volo. 



Consecrator ingremio suo librum Evan- 
geliorum ambabus manibus apertum te- 
nens, inferiore parte libri Electo versa, 
ab eo praestationem hujusmodi juramenti 
recipit, Electo adhuc coram eo genujlexo 
dicente : 

Sic me Deus adjuvet, et haec sancta 
Dei Evangelia. 

Et ipsum textum Evangeliorum am- 
babus manibus tangente, turn, non prius, 
dicit Consecrator : 

Deo gratias.~\ 



hand, I will humbly receive the Apos- 
tolic mandates, and most diligently ex- 
ecute them. But, if I should be hin- 
dered by a legitimate impediment. T will 
fulfill every thing aforementioned by a 
sure messenger, having a special man- 
date to this end, — by a diocesan priest, 
or by some other secular or regular 
priest of known probity and piety, fully 
instructed in the above-mentioned mat- 
ters. 

The possessions which belong to my 
table I will not sell, nor give away, nor 
hypothecate, nor will 1 re-convey (en- 
feoff) them, nor in any manner alien- 
ate them, even with the consent of the 
Chapter of my Church, without con- 
sulting the Roman Pontiff. And, if I 
shall alienate any of them, I will will- 
ingly incur the punishment therefor 
which is laid down in the published 
constitution. 

The Consecrator, holding with both 
hands the book of the Gospels open in 
his lap, the bottom of the book turned 
toward the bishop-elect, receives from him 
the declaration of the oath in this form,, 
the bishop-elect, hitherto kneeling before 
him, saying : 

So help me God, and this, God's 
holy Gospel. 

And when the bishop-elect touches the 
text itself of the Gospels with both hands, 
then, and not before, the Consecrator says : 

Thanks be to God.] 



It is now perfectly plain to every body that the oath of conse- 
cration used in the United States binds every bishop to all the de- 
crees and ordinances concerning the persecution of heretics which 
have ever been issued by the immutable Catholic Church, through 
Popes or Councils, just as much as if they were all severally men- 
tioned in the formula ; and that the omission in this country of the 
offensive words does not change the matter a particle. 

And now I have done. So far as I can now see, nothing, which 
the Most Reverend Archbishop Purcell can possibly say in reply, 
will induce me to continue a controversy with a man, whom I have 
shown to be wanting in all the qualities and acquirements necessary 
to entitle what he says to a moment's consideration. 

Thomas Vickep.s, 

Minister of the First Congregational Society. 



THE CHURCH AND FRIZ THOUGHT. 



LETTER OF PAEI MOHR TO ARCHBISHOP 

PVR CELL. 

[Published in the Cincinnati Gazette, November 15, 1867.] 

To fr B. Purcill. Archbishop of Cincinn 

Mc -i Reverend Sip. : — Li the year 1864 the Catholic Bishop, 
Martin^ Paderborn, issued pastoral letter which contained 

this lion: "By divine authority I am also the lawful 

Shepherd of the Protestants in this iiocese," Under this claim, 
- lity ss not, I suppose, depend upon degrees of lati- 

tude and longitude, and which has its application, therefor 
Cincinnati as weD as in Paderbom, I find myself ithin 

ion. Accordingly, I have ith profound 

interest, the exj jsition C :iiolie doctrine in your recent let- 
ters : the Rev. Thomas Tickers. And I have been gr~ 
-::.--.'.. not wnly by the spirit of candor, courtesy, Chri- 
charity and archiepiseopal suavity, which pervades your admoni- 
tions of that erring member of your diocese, but espeeial> 

emphatic vindication of the liberty : ithin 

the Oath li C hnr .. In jut letter of October 1 5th 1 867, (pub- 
lished in the Cincinnati ;■';:; and Gazette, of October 17th) 

• I do not believe that the Church right to em- 

ploy force to coerce conscience." In anoth of the same 

letter say: I do not want a union of the Church an S 

I deprecate such a union." And in a late article of the Catholic 

:: .:'-. Mr. Vickera is reminded thai the Catholics in M 
land were the first to proclaim liberty of conscience in this coun- 
try. The opinions which you thus ex] ress, and the proclamation 
of the Maryland Catholics, to which :er, are peculiarly 

meritorious and praiseworthy, because history teaches that usually 
minorities are fanatically intolerant, and addicted to the practice 
g the majorit: - 
While I thus ise of the 

liberty of conscience, I a: embarrassed when I come 

to compare these utterances with those of Pope Pius IX, in his 
•lical letter >f December 8, 1864. If I am correctly in- 
formed, the Oath ' rch, in contradistinction to the mini- 
Protestant Churches and - be, .Liiins the great and preeminent 
ray and iinif:: nd in 



LETTER OF PAUL MOHR. 109 



her. practice, irrespective of time, place, or circumstance. She 
does not teach one thing in Rome and another in Cincinnati ; one 
thing in the fifteenth and another in the nineteenth century ; one 
thing in Europe, another in America. And she does not prac- 
tice or attempt to practice one thing when she has, and another 
when she has not control of the temporal power. Moreover, the 
Pope, as I understand it, is the head of the Catholic Church, 
and his spiritual authority is paramount to that of an Arch- 
bishop. Now, I have before me the original text of the encyc- 
lical letter of Pope Pius IX, printed at Innsbruck, by the pub- 
lisher for the Catholic University there, Wagner, and certified to 
be an exact copy of the Roman edition. In that letter the Pope 
enumerates the errors relating to the Church and her rights. As 
such an error (the 24th) he brands the proposition (I quote lit- 
erally : "Ecelesia vis inferenda; potestatem non habet, neque potestatem 
ullam temporalem directam vel indirectam " — " that the Church has 
not the power to use force, nor any direct or indirect temporal 
power." In another place he similarly brands as an error (the 55th) 
the assertion that " ecclesia a statu statusque ab ecclesia sejungendus 
est " — " that the Church is to be separated from the State, and 
the State from the Church." With equal emphasis the Pope sig- 
nalizes as an error (the 15th) the doctrine that u liberum cuique 
homini est earn amplecti ac profiteri religionem, quam rationis lumine 
quis ductus veram putaverit " — " that it is free to every man to em- 
brace and profess that religion, which he may believe true, 
guided by the light of reason." It is to be observed that the 
encyclical letter from which I quote, is not addressed to the pre- 
lates of Europe alone, but (I again quote literally from the 
original) " venerab'dibus fratribus patriarchis, prHmatibus, archi- 
episcopis, et episeopis universis, gratiam et communionem apostolico? 
sedis habentibus" — "to all the venerable brothers, patriarchs, pri- 
mates, archbishops, and bishops having the grace and communion 
of the apostolic See." It is, therefore, in terms addressed to you, 
most reverend sir. 

Now, most reverend sir, I am a plain man, but I think that 
I understand both Latin and English well enough not to be 
mistaken as to the meaning either of the encyclical declarations 
of the Pope, or of your declarations. And it seems to me, that 
what you say is the exact reverse of what the Pope says. Who 
tells the truth — the one, immutable, universal Catholic truth? 
Do you, or does the Holy Father? If I am subject to your 
spiritual jurisdiction, I am certainly subject also to that of the 
Roman Pontiff, for the greater part, I believe, includes the less. 
It is important, then, to know, how I am to harmonize and rec- 
oncile these two conflicting declarations, both of which claim to be 
authoritative. In view of this importance, most reverend sir, I 
humbly request you to answer the following simple questions: 



110 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



1st. Are the passages which I have cited from the Pope's en- 
cyclical letter authentic? 

2d. Have I correctly apprehended and rendered their meaning? 

3d. Is that meaning consistent or inconsistent with your own 
declarations upon the same subject? 

I am aware that you have published a pastoral upon the en- 
cyclical letter. I have read that pastoral. But it is manifest 
that in writing it you either had not the encyclical before you, or 
that you took it for granted that your readers had not that encyc- 
lical before them. At first I was a little tempted to embrace the 
latter supposition, for the inordinate verbosity and incoherence 
of your pastoral seemed to show that you were not quite well 
when you wrote it, but painfully afflicted with a malady which 
old Dr. Martial calls verminatio aurium, and thus too intent upon 
scratching the sore place to write plainly and to the point. But 
I abandoned that supposition the moment I came to recollect 
that you are a venerable old man, a high prelate of the only true 
Church, a keeper of the consciences of men, a confessor of priests 
and laymen ; that, hence, you must be presumed to speak the truth, 
and the whole truth, plainly and unequivocally at all times, and 
in all places, and to abominate all mendacity, subterfuge, and in- 
tentional mystification. Surely there could be no object more 
loathsome and despicable than a hoary Church dignitary, clothed 
with all the natural and ecclesiastical emblems of venerability, 
caught in the act of telling or insinuating a lie, or of paltering 
to the understandings of those who depend upon him for the ex- 
position of the truth. 

I take it for granted, then, most reverend sir, that you wrote 
your pastoral without having the encyclical before you, and sug- 
gest that you recur to the text before you undertake to answer 
my questions. 

There is another question, most reverend sir, which I beg leave 
to ask you. Rev. Thomas Yickers, in his reply of October 26, 
1867, quoted from the " Summa " of Thomas Aquinas (whom you 
had before cited as one of the great lights of the Church, illus- 
trating the freedom of thought within the Church at all times) 
the following passage, among other passages of similar import : 

Unde, si falsarii pecunice, vel alii malef adores statim per sceeu- 
lares prineipes juste morti traduntur, multo magis hozretici statim 
ex quo de hceresi convincuntur, possunt non solum excommunicari, 
sed et juste oeeidi. (Hence, if counterfeiters of money or other 
malefactors are justly put straightway to death by the secular 
authorities, much more may heretics, the instant they are con- 
victed of heresy, not only be excommunicated, but justly killed.) 

Now, in the rejoinder to Mr. Vickers, contained in the Cath- 
olic Telegraph, of the 30th of October, 1867, (edited by a clergy- 
man, who is your brother, and writes under your eve and with 



LETTER OF PAUL MOHR. Ill 



your sanction, I presume) this is mentioned as a text, " which 
Mr. Yickers pretends to quote" What these words " pretends to 
quote" would mean, if used in a common political squabble, 
where equivocation and indirection are not infrequently the rule, 
I will not undertake to say. But when a gentleman in holy 
orders uses such an expression, every body understands, of course, 
that he charges his antagonist with quoting words which are not 
to be found in the text from which the quotation is pretended to 
be made. Now, I have examined Migne's edition of the " Sum- 
ma " of Thomas Aquinas, and I find the words there exactly as 
Mr. Vickers quotes them. The alternative, therefore, is, either that 
a Catholic priest or bishop deliberately preferred the charge of 
forgery against Mr. Vickers, when he knew the charge to be 
false — an alternative too horrible to be thought of — or that Migne's 
celebrated edition of the Fathers of the Church is itself a forgery, 
and unworthy of credit. I beg leave to ask you, therefore, most 
reverend sir, is Migne's edition of Thomas Aquinas spurious? 
I hear that this edition has found its way into the libraries of 
many of your clergymen, and is publicly offered for sale at the 
Catholic book-store of the Brothers Benziger, on Vine Street, 
in Cincinnati. 

Another question, most reverend sir, if you will indulge me. 
In your last rejoinder, just referred to, (I say your rejoinder, for 
in it you speak of " our pastoral," though the article professes to 
be an editorial, and does not bear your signature,) you thank God 
that the world has outgrown the policy and practice of interfering 
with the consciences of men, and complain of Mr. Vickers because 
he has drawn the vail from the history of days long past. That 
means, of course, that in our day practices, such as those alluded to 
by Mr. Vickers, are unheard of, at least, in the Catholic Church. 
Now, most reverend sir, I regret to say that there is a current 
story of a Jewish boy who was forcibly taken from his parents 
and thus coerced into Catholicism. Mortara, I think, is the name 
of the boy. There is a story, that to this day no Protestant is 
permitted to meet his fellow-believers in any inclosure within the 
city of Rome for purposes of worship ; and, furthermore, that the 
real occasion of your recent visit to Rome, to which you make 
repeated and pathetic allusion, was the canonization of some new 
saints, most prominent of whom was an old Spanish inquisitor, 
Don Pedro Arbues de Epila, who, toward the close of the fifteenth 
century, caused thousands of heretics to be burned in the Province 
of Arragon, in Spain, and in consequence was killed by the ex- 
asperated populace.* 

Am I to understand that these reports, all of which relate to 



* See Augsburg Gazette, May 11, 1867. 



112 THE CHURCH AND FREE THOUGHT. 



events in the second half of the nineteenth century, are base 
fictions*? What is the truth in the Mortara case? Can I and a 
number of my fellow-Protestants meet for public worship in Rome, 
in a building hired or bought for that purpose, if we molest no 
one in so doing ? Who was Don Pedro Arbues de Epila ? 

In conclusion, permit me to congratulate you, most reverend 
sir, upon the holy indignation evinced in your last article in the 
Catholic Telegraph, in view of the embers of burned witches. I 
infer that in your judgment the practice of burning witches was 
not inaugurated by the Catholic Church; that Gregory IX, who, 
in the fifteenth century, issued the infamous bull against witch- 
craft, and Innocent VI, who, in the same century, in 1484, issued 
another bull still more infamous, were arch-heretics ; and that the 
" Jfalleus. JIaleficarum," which was published at Cologne, in 1489, 
was also the production of one of the pestilent heresiarchs who 
abounded at that time. 

Paul Mohr. 

Bantam, Clermoxt Corxir, 0., November 9, 1867. 



|wwtdfe. 



THE ENCYLICAL LETTER 

OF 

POPE PIUS IX, 

AND THE 

Syllabus of Modern Errors, 
dated dec. 8, 1864, 

WITH A 

PARALLEL TRANSLATION. 



LITTERS ENCYCLICS. 



VENERABILIBUS FRATRIBUS, PATRIARCHIS, PRIMATIBUS, ARCHIEPIS- 

COPIS ET EPISCOPIS UNIVERSIS GRATIAM ET COMMU- 

NIONEM APOSTOLICAE SEDIS HABENTIBUS. 



FIXJS JE>F. IX. 

VENEKABILES FRATRES, 

SALUTEM ET APOSTOLICAM BENEDICTIONEM. 

Quanta cura ac pastorali vigilantia Romani Pontifices Praedecessores Nos- 
tri, exsequentes demandatum sibi ab ipso Christo Domino in persona Beatis- 
sinii Petri Apostolorum Principis officiuni munusque pascendi agnos et oves, 
nunquam intermiserint universum Doininicuni gregem sedulo enutrire verbis 
fidei, ac salutari doctrina imbuere, eumque ab venenatis pascuis arcere, om- 
nibus quidem ac Vobis praesertim compertum exploraturaque est, Yenera- 
biles Fratres. Et sane iidem Decessores Nostri augustae catholicae religionis, 
veritatis ac justitiae assertores et vindices, de animarum salute maxime sol- 
liciti nihil potius unquam habuere, quam sapientissimis suis Litteris, et Con- 
stitutionibus retegere et damnare omnes haereses et errores, qui Divinae Fidei 
nostrae, catholicae Ecclesiae doctrinae, morum honestati, ac sempiternae hom- 
inum saluti adversi, graves frequenter excitarunt tempestates, et christianam 
civilemque rem publicam miserandum in modum funestarunt. Quocirca iidem 
Decessores Nostri Apostolica fortitudine continenter obstiterunt nefariis ini- 
quorum hominum molitionibus, qui despumantes tamquam fluctus feri maris 
confusiones suas, ac libertatem promittentes, cum servi sint corruptionis, falla- 
cibus suis opinionibus, et perniciosissimis scriptis catholicae religionis civil- 
isque societatis fundamenta convellere, omnemque virtutem ac justitiam de 
medio tollere, omniumque animos mentesque depravare, et incautos imperi- 
tamque praesertim juventutem a recta morum disciplina avertere, eamque 
miserabiliter corrumpere, in erroris laqueos inducere, ac tandem ab Ecclesiae 
catholicae sinu avellere conati sunt. 

Jam vero, uti Vobis, Venerabiles Fratres, apprime notum est, Nos vix dum 
arcano divinae providentiae consilio nullis certe Xostris meritis ad hanc Petri 
Cathedram evecti ruimus, cum videremus summo animi Nostri dolore horri- 
bilem sane procellam tot pravis opinionibus excitatam, et gravissima, ac nun- 
quam satis lugenda damna, quae in christianum populum ex tot erroribus 
redundant, pro Apostolici Nostri Ministerii officio illustria Praedecessorum 
Nostrorum vestigia sectantes Nostram extulimus vocem, ac pluribus in vulgus 
editis encyclicis Epistolis et Allocutionibus in Consistorio habitis, aliisque 

(2) 



ENCYCLICAL LETTER 



TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN, ALL PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCH- 
BISHOPS, AND BISHOPS HAVING THE FAVOR AND COM- 
MUNION OF THE HOLY SEE. 



POPE PIUS IX. 

VENERABLE BRETHREN, 
GREETING AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION. 

With how great care and pastoral vigilance the Roman Pontiffs, Our Pre- 
decessors, fulfilling the duty and office committed to them by the Lord Christ 
Himself in the person of the most Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, of 
feeding the lambs and the sheep, have never ceased to nourish the Lord's 
whole flock with the words of faith and with salutary doctrine, and to guard 
it from poisonous pastures, — is thorougly known to all, and especially to You, 
Venerable Brethren. And truly the same, Our Predecessors, the maintainers 
and defenders of the august catholic religion, of truth, and of justice, being 
most anxious for the salvation of souls, never had anything more at heart than 
by their most wise Letters and Constitutions to unmask and condemn all those 
heresies and errors which, being adverse to our Divine Faith, to the doctrine 
of the catholic Church, to purity of morals, and to the eternal salvation of 
men, have frequently excited violent tempests, and have miserably afflicted 
both the christian and civil commonwealth. For which cause the same, Our 
Predecessors, have, with Apostolic fortitude, constantly resisted the nefarious 
undertakings of wicked men, who, like the waves of the raging sea foaming 
out their own confusion, and promising liberty, while they were the slaves of 
corruption, have striven by their fallacious opinions and most pernicious writ- 
ings to subvert the foundations of the catholic religion and of civil society, to 
remove from among men all virtue and justice, to deprave the minds and 
hearts of all, to turn away from true moral training unwary persons, and es- 
pecially inexperienced youth, miserably to corrupt it, to lead it into the snares 
of error, and finally to tear it from the bosom of the catholic Church. 

We, too, had scarcely (by the hidden counsel of Divine Providence, cer- 
tainly for no merit of our own) been elevated to this Chair of Peter, when 
seeing with the greatest grief of our soul the truly awful storm aroused by so 
many evil opinions, and the most grievous calamities, never sufficiently to be 
deplored, which sweep over the christian people from so many errors, we, as 
is well known to You, Venerable Brethren — according to the duty of our 
Apostolic Ministry, and following in the illustrious footsteps of Our Predeces- 
sors — immediately raised Our voice, and in many published Encvclical Let 

(2) 



ENCYCLICAE. 



Apostolicis Litteris praecipuos tristissimae nostrae aetatis errores danmavimus, 
exiiniamque vestram episcopalem vigilantiam excitavirnus, et universos cathol- 
icae Ecclesiae Nobis carrissiinos fiiios etiain atque etiara nionuiinus et ex- 
hortati sumus, ut tain dirae contagia pestis omnino horrerent et devitarent. Ac 
praesertim Nostra prima Encyclica Epistola die 9 noverabris anno 1846 Vobis 
scripta, binisque Allocutionibus, quarum altera die 9 decembris anno 1854, 
altera vero 9 junii anno 1862 in Consistorio a Nobis habita fuit, monstrosa 
opinionum portenta damnavimus, quae hac potissimum aetate cum maximo 
animarum damno, et civilis ipsius societatis detrimento dominantur, quaeque 
non solum catholicae Ecclesiae, ejusque salutari doctrinae ac venerandis ju- 
ribus, verum etiam sempiternae naturali legi a Deo in omnium cordibus in- 
sculptae, rectaeque rationi maxime adversantur, et ex quibus alii prope omnes 
originem habent errores. 

Etsi autem haud omiserimus potissimos hujusmodi errores saepe proscrib- 
ere et reprobare, tamen catholicae Ecclesiae causa, animarumque salus Nobis 
divinitus commissa, atque ipsius humanae societatis bonum omnino postulant, 
ut iterum pastoralem vestram sollicitudinem excitemus ad alias pravas proHi- 
gandas opiniones, quae ex eisdem erroribus, veluti ex fontibus erumpunt. 
Quae falsae ac perversae opiniones eo magis detestandae sunt, quod eo potis- 
simum spectant, ut impediatur et amoveatur salutaris ilia vis, quam catholica 
Ecclesia ex divini sui Auctoris institutione et mandato, libere exercere debet 
usque ad consummationem saeculi non minus erga singulos homines, quam 
erga nationes, populos summosque eorum Principes, utque de medio tollatur 
mutua ilia inter iSacerdotium et Imperium consiliorum societas et concordia, 
quae rei cum sacrae turn civili fausta semper extitit ac salutaris. 1 Eteniin 
probe noscitis, Venerabiles Fratres, hoc tempore non paucos reperiri, qui civili 
consortio impium absurdumque naturalismi, uti vocant, principium applican- 
tes audent docere, "optimam societatis publicae rationem, civilemque pro- 
gressum omnino requirere, ut humana societas constituatur et gubernetur, nullo 
habito ad religionem respectu, ac si ea non existeret, vel saltern nullo facto 
veram inter f'alsasque religiones discrimine." Atque contra sacrarum Litte- 
rarum, Ecclesiae, sanctorumque Patrum doctrinam, asserere non dubitant, 
"optimam esse conditionem societatis, in qualmperio non agnoscitur officium 
coercendi sancitis poenis violatores catholicae religionis, nisi quatenus pax 
publica postulet." Ex qua omnino falsa socialis regiminis idea hand timent 
erroneam illam fovere opinionem catholicae Ecclesiae, animarumque saluti 
maxime exitialem a rec. mem. Gregorio XVI Praedecessore Nostro delira- 
mentum appellatam, 2 nimirum "libertatem conscientiae, et cultuum esse pro- 
prium cujuscumque hominis jus, quod lege proclamari et asseri debet in omni 
recte constituta societate, et jus civibus inesse ad omnimodam libertatem nulla 
vel ecclesiastica, vel civili auctoritate coarctandam, quo suos conceptus quos- 
cumque sive voce, sive typis, sive alia ratione palam publiceque manifestare, 
ac declarare valeant." Dum vero id temere affirmant, haud cogitant et con- 
siderant, quod libertatem perditionis 3 praedicant, et quod "si humanis per- 
suasionibus semper disceptare sit liberum, nunquam deesse poterunt, qui 
veritati audeant resultare et de humanae sapientiae loquacitate confidere, 
cum hanc nocentissimam vanitatem quantum debeat fides et sapientia 
Christiana vitare, ex ipsa Domini Nostri Jesu Christi institutione cog- 
noscat." 4 



Et quoniam ubi a civili societate fuit amota religio, ac repudiata divinae 
revelationis doctrina et auctoritas, vel ipsa germana justitiae humanique juris 
notio tenebris obscuratur et amittitur, atque in verae justitiae legitimique juris 

1 Gregor XVI. Epist. encycl. 3Iirari, 15. aug. 1832. 2 Eadem Encycl. Mirari. 

3 S. Aug. Epist. 105, al. 166. *S. Leo Epist. 164, al. 133, g. 2, edit. Ball. 



ENCYCLICAL. 3 



ters, in Allocutions delivered in Consistory, and in other Apostolical Letters, 
condemned the principal errors of our most unhappy age, and excited your ex- 
traordinary episcopal vigilance, and again and again admonished and exhorted 
all Our very dear sons of the catholic Church to altogether abhor and shun 
the contagion of so dire a pestilence. And especially in Our first Encyclical 
Letter written to you on the 9th day of November, 1846, and in two Allocu- 
tions delivered by Us in Consistory, the one on the 9th day of December, 1854, 
and the other on the 9th day of June. 1862, We condemned the monstrous por- 
tents of opinion which especially prevail in this ago, to the greatest injury of 
souls and to the detriment of civil society itself, which are also in the highest 
degree opposed, not only to the catholic Church and her salutary doctrine and 
venerable rights, but also to the eternal natural law engraven by God in all 
men's hearts, and to right reason ; and from which almost all other errors have 
their origin. 

But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief 
errors of this kind, yet the cause of the catholic Church, the salvation of souls 
divinely committed to Us, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether 
demand that We again stir up your pastoral solicitude to overthrow other evil 
opinions, which flow from these errors as from fountains. These false and 
perverse opinions are the more to be detested because they chiefly tend to im- 
pede and remove that salutary power, which the catholic Church, according to 
the institution and commission of her divine Author, should freely exercise to 
the end of time — not only over individual men, but over nations, peoples, and 
their sovereign Rulers ; and [tend also] to take away that mutual fellowship 
and concord of counsels between the Priesthood and the Civil Government, 
which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary to religious as well as 
civil interests. 1 For you well know, Venerable Brethren, that at this time not 
few are found, who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle 
of naturalism, as they call it, dare to teach, that "the best interest of public so- 
ciety and civil progress absolutely require that human society be constituted 
and governed without any regard to religion, as though religion did not exist, 
or at least without any discrimination between the true religion and false 
ones." And they do not hesitate, against the doctrine of the sacred Scriptures, 
of the Church, and of the holy Fathers, to assert that " that condition of society 
is the best, in which the Civil Power does not recognize the obligation to coerce 

BY EXACTED PENALTIES THE VIOLATION OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION, except SO far 

as the public peace may require it." Proceeding from this totally false idea of 
social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal 
to the catholic Church and to the salvation of souls, which was designated by 
Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI., of recent memory, as insane nonsense, 2 namely, 
that "liberty of conscience and worship is the personal right of every man, 
which ought to be proclaimed by law, and asserted in every rightly constituted 
society ; and that citizens have an inherent right to the complete liberty, which 
must not be restrained by any ecclesiastical or civil authority, of openly and 
publicly manifesting and declaring any of their thoughts whatever, either in 
speech, or in print, or in any other manner." But, while they have the temer- 
ity to affirm this, they do not think and consider, that they are preaching the 
liberty of perdition, 3 and that, " if it be always allowed to debate with human 
persuasions, there can never be wanting men who dare to resist the truth and 
to put faith in the loquacity of human wisdom, whereas we know from the very 
institution of Our Lord Jesus Christ, how faith and christian wisdom must 
avoid this most hurtful vanity." * 

And, because where religion has been removed from civil society, and the 
doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, even the genuine notion 
itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and material force is 

i Gregory XVI. Eneycl. Letter " Mirari." Aug. 15, 1832. 2S ame Encycl. Mirari. 
a St. Aug. Epist. 105 al. 106. *St. Leo. Epist. 164 al. 133, g. 2, edit. Ball. 



ENCYCLICAE. 



locum materialis substituitur vis, hide liquet cur nonnulli certissimis sanae 
rationis principiis penitus neglectis posthabitisque audeant conclamare, "vo- 
luutatem populi, publica, quam dicunt, opinione. vel alia ratione nianifestatani 
constituere supremam legem ab omni divino humanoque jure solutam, et in 
ordine politico facta consummata, eo ipso quod consummata sunt vim juris 
habere." Veruni ecquis non videt, planeque sentit, hominum societatem re- 
ligionis ac verae justitiae vinculis solutam nullum aliud profecto propositum 
habere posse, nisi scopum comparandi, cumulandique opes, nullamque aliam 
in suis actionibus legem sequi, nisi indomitam animi cupiditatem inserviendi 
propriis voluptatibus et commodis? Eapropter hujusmodi homines acerbo 
sane odio insectantur Religiosas Familias quamvis de re Christiana, civili ac 
litteraria summopere meritas, et blaterant, easdam nullam habere legitimam 
existendi rationem; atque ita haereticorum commentis plaudunt. Nam, ut 
sapientissime rec. mem. Pius VI. Decessor Xoster docebat " regularium 
abolitio laedit statum publicae professionis consiliorum evangelicorum, laedit 
vivendi rationem in Ecclesia commendatam tamquam Apostolicae doctrinae 
consentaneam, laedit ipsos insignes fundatores, quos super altaribus vene- 
ramur, qui nonnisi a Deo inspirati eas constituerunt societates." l Atque 
etiam impie pronunciant, auferendam esse civibus et Ecclesiae facultatem 
"qua eleemosynas christianae caritatis causa palam erogare valeant," ac de 
medio tollendam legem, " qua certis aliquibus diebus opera servilia propter 
Dei cultum prohibentur," fallacissime praetexentes, commemoratam facultatem 
et legem optimae publicae oeconomiae principiis obsistere. Neque contenti 
amovere religionem a publica societate, volunt religionem ipsam a privatis 
etiam arcere familiis. Etenim funestissimum Communismi et Socialismi do- 
centes ac profitentes errorem asserunt, " societatem domesticam seu faniiliam 
totam suae existentiae rationem a jure dumtaxat civili mutuari; proindeque 
ex lege tantum civili dimanare ac pendere jura omnia parentum in filios, cum 
primis vero jus institutionis, educationisque curandae." Quibus impiis opin- 
ionibus machinationibusque in id praecipue intendunt fallacissimi isti homi- 
nes, ut salutifera catholicae Ecclesiae doctrina ac vis a juventutis institutione 
et educatione prorsus eliminetur, ac teneri flexibilesque juvenum animi per- 
niciosis quibusque erroribus, vitiisque misere inficiantur ac depraventur. 
Siquidem omnes, qui rem turn sacram, turn publicam perturbare, ac rectum 
societatis ordinem evertere, et jura omnia divina et humana delere sunt conati, 
omnia nefaria sua consilia, studia et operam in improvidam praesertim juven- 
tutem decipiendam ac depravandam, ut supra innuimus, semper contulerunt, 
ouinemque spem in ipsius juventutis corruptela collocarunt. Quocirca nun- 
quam cessant utrumque clerum, ex quo, veluti certissima historiae monumenta 
splendide testantur, tot magna in christianam, civilem, et litterariam rempubli- 
cam commoda redundarunt, quibuscumque infandis modis divexare, et edi- 
cere, ipsum Clerum, " utpote vero, utilique scientiae et civilitatis progressui 
inimicum, ab omni juventutis instituendae educandaeque cura et officio esse 
amovendum." 



At vero alii instaurantes prava ac toties clamnata novatorum commenta, in- 
signi impudentia audent, Ecclesiae et hujus Apostolicae i^edis supremam 
auctoritatem a Christo Domino ei tributam civilis auctoritatis arbitrio subji- 
cere, et omnia ejusdem Ecclesiae et Sedis jura denegare circa ea quae ad 
exteriorem ordinem pertinent. Namque ipsos niiniine pudet, affirmare "Ec- 
clesiae leges non obligare in conscientia, nisi cum promulganfcur a civili 
potestate; acta et decreta RomanorumPontificum ad religionem et Ecclesiam 

»Epist. ad Card, de la Rochefoucault, 10 martii 1791. 



ENCYCLICAL. 



put in the place of true justice and legitimate right, thence it is evident why 
some persons, utterly neglecting and disregarding the most certain principles 
of sound reason, dare to proclaim, that "the will of the people, manifested by 
what they call public opinion, or in some other manner, constitutes the supreme 
law, independent of all divine and human right; and that, in the political or- 
der, accomplished facts, simply because they are accomplished, have the force 
of right." But who does not see and clearly perceive, that human society, 
when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, 
no other end than the purpose of obtaining and accumulating wealth, and fol- 
lows no other law in its actions but the ungoverned desire of ministering to 
its own pleasures and interests ? For this reason, men of this sort pursue with 
bitter hatred the Religious Orders, (although these have deserved extremely 
well of Christianity, the state, and literature,) and they prate about the same 
having no legitimate ground of existence, and thus applaud the falsehoods of 
heretics. For, as Our Predecessor Pius VI., whose memory is still fresh, most 
wisely taught, " the abolition of the religious orders is injurious to the public 
profession of evangelical counsels, it is injurious to a method of living com- 
mended in the Church as agreeable to Apostolic doctrine, it is injurious to the 
distinguished founders themselves, whom we venerate on our altars, who did 
not establish these societies but by inspiration of God." x And these men also 
impiously declare, that the power should be taken away from the citizens and 
the Church, "whereby they may openly give alms for the sake of christian 
charity;" and that the law should be abolished, "whereby on certain fixed 
days servile labor is prohibited on account of divine worship;" and this on 
the most fallacious pretext that said power and law are opposed to the princi- 
ples of the best public economy. And not content with removing religion 
from public society, they wish to banish it also from private families. For, 
teaching and professing the most fatal error of Communism and Socialism, they 
assert, that " domestic society, or the family, derives the whole ground of its 
existence from the civil law alone; and consequently, that from" the civil law 
alone issue, and on it depend, all rights of parents over their children, and 
especially the right of providing for instruction and education." By which 
impious opinions and machinations these most deceitful men chiefly aim at 
this result: that the salutary doctrine and influence of the catholic Church 
be entirely banished from the instruction and education of youth, and that the 
tender and flexible minds of the young be miserably infected and depraved by 
every most pernicious error and vice. For all who have endeavored to throw 
into confusion things both sacred and secular, to overturn the right order of 
society, and to blot out all rights, divine and human, have always, (as we above 
hinted) devoted all their nefarious schemes, devices, and efforts, chiefly to de- 
ceiving and depraving incautious youth, and have placed all their hope in its 
corruption. For which reason they never cease in all abominable ways to 
assail the clergy, both regular and secular, from whom (as the surest monu- 
ments of history nobly attest), so many great advantages have abundantly flowed 
to Christianity, civil society, and literature, and to proclaim, that this very 
Clergy, " as being hostile to the true and useful progress of science and civili- 
zation, should be removed from the whole charge and duty of instructing and 
educating youth." 

But others, reviving the wicked and so often condemned inventions of in- 
novators, dare with remarkable impudence to subject the supreme authority of 
the Church and of this Apostolic See, given to it by the Lord Christ himself, 
to the will of the civil authority, and to deny all those rights of the same Church 
and See which pertain to matters of external order. For they are not at all 
ashamed to affirm, that " the laws of the Church do not bind the conscience 
unless when they are promulgated by the civil power; that the acts and de- 
crees of the Roman Pontiffs, referring to religion and the Church, need the 

1 Letter to Cardinal de la Itochefoucault, March 10, 1791. 



ENCYCLICAE. 



spectantia indigere sanctione et approbations, vel minimum assensu potestatis 
civilis; constitutiones Apostolicas, 1 quibus damnantur clandestinae societates, 
sive in eis exigatur, sive non exigatur juramentum de secreto servando, earum- 
que asseclae et fautores anathemate mulctantur, nullain habere vim in illis 
orbis regionibus, ubi ejusmodi aggregationes tolerantur a civili gubernio; ex- 
communicationem a Concilio Tridentino et Komanis Pontificibus latam in eos, 
qui jura possessionesque Ecclesiae invadunt, et usurpant, niti confusione 
ordinis spirituals, ordinisque civilis ac politici ad mundanum dumtaxat bonum 
prosequendum; Ecclesiae nihil clebere decernere, quod obstringere possit 
fidelium conscientias in ordine ad usum rerum temporalium ; Ecclesiae jus 
non competere violatores legum suarum poenis temporalibus coercendi ; con- 
forme esse sacrae theologiae jurisque publici principiis, bonorum proprieta- 
tem, quae ab Ecclesiis, a Familiis religiosis, aliisque locis piis possidentis, 
civili gubernio asserere et vindicare." Neque erubescunt palam publiceque 
profiteri haereticorum effatum et principium, ex quo tot perversae oriuntur 
sententiae atque errores. Dictitant enim " Ecclesiasticam potestatem non esse 
jure divino distinctam et independentem a potestate civili, neque ejusmodi dis- 
tinctionem, et independentiam servari posse, quin ab Ecclesia invadantur et 
usurpentur essentialia jura potestatis civilis." Atque silentio praeterire non 
possumus eorum audaciam, qui sanam non sustinentes doctrinam, contendunt 
"illis Apostolicae Sedis judiciis, et decretis, quorum objectum ad bonum 
generale Ecclesiae, ejusdemque jura, ac diciplinam spectare declaratur. dum- 
modo fidei morumque dogma a non attingat, posse assensum et obedientiam 
detrectari absque peccato, et absque ulla catholicae professionis jactura." 
Quod quidem quantopere adversetur catholico dogmati plenae potestatis Ro- 
mano Pontifici ab ipso Christo Domino divinitus collatae universalem pas- 
cendi, regendi et gubernandi Ecclesiam, nemo est qui non clare aperteque 
videat et intelligat. 

In tanta igitur depravatarum opinionum perversitate, Nos Apostolici Nostri 
officii probe memores, ac de sanctissima nostra religione, de sana doctrina, et 
animarum salute Nobis divinitus commissa, ac de ipsius humanae societatis 
bono maxime solliciti, Apostolicam Nostraru voceui iterum extollere existima- 
vimus. Itaque omnes et singulas pravas opiniones ac doctrinas singillatim 
hisce Litteris commemoratas auctoritate Nostra Apostolica reprobamus, 
proscribimus atque damnamus, easque ab omnibus catholicae Ecclesiae filiis, 
veluti reprobatas, proscriptas atque damnatas omnino haberi volumus et 
mandamus. 

Ac praeter ea, optime scitis, Yenerabiles Fratres, hisce temporibus omnis 
veritatis justitiaeque osores, et acerrimos nostrae religionis hostes, per pestife- 
ros libros, libellos, et ephemerides toto terrarum orbe dispersas populis illu- 
dentes, ac malitiose mentientes alias impias quasque disseminare doctrinas. 
Neque ignoratis hac etiam nostra aetate, nonnullos reperiri, qui satanae 
spiritu permoti, et incitati eo impietatis devenerunt, ut l)ominatorem Domi- 
num Nostrum Jesum Christum negare, ejusque Divinitatem scelerata proca- 
citate oppugnare non paveant. Hie vero haud possumus, quin maximis 
meritisque laudibus Vos efferamus, Venerabiles Fratres, qui episcopalem 
vestram vocem contra tantam impietatem omni zelo attollere minime omisistis. 

Itaque hisce Nostris Litteris Vos iterum amantissime alloquimur, qui in 
sollicitudinis Nostrae partem vocati summo Nobis inter maximas Nostras 
acerbitates solatio, laetitiae, et consolationi estis propter egregiam qua 
praestatis religionem, pietatem, ac propter mirum ilium amorem, fidem, et 
observantiam, qua Nobis et huic Apostolicae Sedi concordissimis animis 
obstricti gravissimum episcopale vestrum ministerium strenue ac sedulo 

1 Clement XII. In eminenti. Bened. XIV. Providas Romanorum. Pii VII Ec- 
clesiam. Leon. XII. Quo graviora. 



ENCYCLICAL. 



sanction and approbation, or at least the assent, of the civil power; that the 
Apostolic constitutions, 1 whereby secret societies are condemned (whether an 
oath of secrecy be or be not required in such societies), and their frequenters 
and favorers are punished with the ban — have no force in those regions of the 
world where associations of this kind are tolerated by the civil government; 
that the excommunication pronounced by the Council of Trent and the Roman 
Pontiffs against those who invade and usurp the rights and possessions of the 
Church, rests upon a confusion of the spiritual order with the civil and politi- 
cal order, in the pursuit of a purely secular interest; that the Church must 
decree nothing which binds the consciences of the faithful in regard to the use 
of temporal things ; that the Church has no right to coerce the violators of her 
laws by means of temporal punishments ; that it is conformable to sacred the- 
ology and to the principles of public law to assert and claim for the civil gov- 
ernment a right of property in those goods which are possessed by the Churches, 
the religious Orders, and other pious establishments." Nor do they blush 
openly and publicly to profess the maxim and principle of heretics, from which 
arise so many perverse opinions and errors. For they repeat, that " the Eccle- 
siastical power is not by divine right distinct from and independent of the civil 
power, and that such distinction and independence can not be preserved with- 
out the essential rights of the civil power being invaded and usurped by the 
Church." Nor can we pass over in silence the audacity of those who, not 
upholding sound doctrine, contend, that "without sin, and without rejecting 
the catholic profession, assent and obedience may be refused to those judg- 
ments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to concern 
the general good of the Church, her rights and discipline, so long as this refusal 
does not touch the dogmata of faith and morals." There is no one who does 
not clearly and distinctly see and understand, how grievously this is opposed 
to the catholic dogma concerning the full power divinely given by Christ the 
Lord himself to the Roman Pontiff, of feeding, guiding, and ruling the univer- 
sal Church. 

Amidst, therefore, such great perversity of depraved opinions, We, well re- 
membering Our Apostolic office, and full of solicitude for our most holy relig- 
ion, for sound doctrine, and the salvation of souls, divinely committed to Us, 
and for the welfare of human society itself, have decided to raise again Our 
Apostolic voice. Therefore, by Our Apostolic authority, We reprobate, proscribe, 
and condemn the evil opinions and doctrines, all and singular, severally mentioned 
in this Letter, and will and command that all children of the Catholic Church hold 
them in every respect as reprobated, proscribed, and condemned. 

And, beside these things, you know very well, Venerable Brethren, that in 
these times the haters of all truth and justice and the most bitter enemies of 
our religion, deceiving the people by means of pestilential books, pamphlets, 
and newspapers scattered over the whole world, and maliciously lying, dissem- 
inate all sorts of impious doctrines. Nor are You ignorant, that also in our 
day some are found, who, moved and incited by the spirit of Satan, have reached 
that degree of impiety that they do not shrink from denying our Lord and Master 
Jesus Christ and from assailing his Divinity with flagitious impudence. Here, 
however, We can not but extol You, Venerable Brethren, with great and de- 
served praise, You, who have not failed to raise with all zeal your episcopal 
voice against impiety so great. 

Therefore, in this Our Letter, We again most lovingly address You, who, 
called to participate in Our solicitude, are to Us, amid Our most grievous dis- 
tresses, the greatest solace, joy, and consolation, because of the eminent relig- 
ion and piety, wherein you excel, and because of that marvelous love, fidelity, 
and dutifulness, whereby, most harmoniously bound to Us and to this Apos- 
tolic See, you strive strenuously and sedulously to fulfill your most weighty 

1 Clement XII. " In eminenti." Bened. XIV. " Providas Homanorum." Pius VII. 
" Ecclesiam." Leo. XII. " Quo graviora. 



BNCYCLICAE. 



implere contenditis. Etenini ab exiinio vestro pastorali zelo expectamus. ut 
assumentes gladiuni spiritus. qaod est verbum Dei, et eonfortati in gratia 
Domini Nostri Jesu Ckristi reikis ingeminatis Btudiia quotidie maps j : 
cere, ut fideles curae vestrae concrediti "abstineant ab herbis noxiis. quas 
Jesus Chrisms non colit, quia non sunt plantatio patris." 1 Atque eisdem 
fidelibus inculcare nunquam desinite. omnem veram felicitatem in homines 
ex augusta nostra religione. ejusque doctrina et exereitio redundare. ac bea- 
tum esse populum, cujus Dominus Deus ejus. 2 Docete li ' catholicae Fidei 
lundamenLO regna subsistere. 3 et nihil tarn mortit'erum. tarn praece] b 
casum. tarn expositum ad omnia perieula. si hoc solum nobis putantes posse 
sufncere, quod liberum arbitrium. cum naseerernur, accepimus. ultra jam a 
Domino nihil quaeramus. idest. auetoris nostri obliti. ejus potentiam. 

Lamas liberos. abjuremes.' 4 Atque etiam ne omittatis docere ' regiam po- 
testatem non ad solum mundi regimen, sed maxime ad Ecclesiae praesidiom 
esse collatam." 5 et nihil esse quod civitatum Principibus, et Regibos d 
fruetui. gloriaeque esse possit, quam si. ut sapientissimus fortissimusque alter 
Praedecessor Foster S. Felix Zenoni Imperatori perscribebat. ' Eccl 

catholieam sinant uti legibus suis, nee libertati ejus quem- 

quam permittant obsistere Certum est enim. hoc rebus suis. 

salutare, ut. cum de causis Dei agatur. juxta ipsius eonstimtuni regiam 
voluntatem Sacerdotibus Christi stucleant subdere. non praezerre.' " 6 

Sed si semper, Venerabiles Fratres. nunc potissimum in tantis Ecclesiae 
civilisque societatis calamitatibus, in tanta adversariorum contra rem catholi- 
eam et banc Apostolicam Sedem conspiratione tantaque errorum eongerie, 
necesse omnino est. ut adeamus cum fidacia ad thronum gratiae. ut niiseri- 
cordiam cousequamur, et gratiam inveniamus in auxilio opportuno. Quo- 
circa omnium fidelium pietatem excitare existimavirnus. ut una Nobiscuin 
Vobisque clemeutissimum luminum et misericordiarum Patrem ferventissimis 
humiilimisque precibus sine intermissione orent. et obsecrent. et in plenitu- 
dine fidei semper confugiant ad Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum, qui re- 
demit nos Deo in sanguine suo, Ejusque dulcissimum Cor flagrantisshnae 
erga nos caritatis victimam enixe jugiterque exorent. ut amoris sui vinculis 
omnia ad seipsum trahat. utque omnes homines sanctissimo suo amore in- 
fiammati secundum Cor Ejus ambulent digne Deo per omnia placentes. in 
omni bono opere fructiheantes. Cum autem sine dubio gratiores sint Deo 
hominum preces. si animis ab omni labe puris ad ipsum aecedant. iccirco 
caelestis Ecclesiae thesauros dispensation! Nostrae commissos Christifidelibus 
Apostolica liberaiitate reserare censuimus. ut iidern fideles ad veram pietatem 
vehementius incensi. ac per Poenitentiae Sacramentum a peccatorum maculis 
expiati fidentius suas preces ad Deum effundant, ejusque misericordiam et 
gratiam consequantur. 

Hi see igitur Litteris auctoritate Nostra Apostolica omnibus et singulis 
utriusque sexus catholici orbis fidelibus Plenariam Indulgentiam ad : 
Jubilaei concedimus intra unius tantum mensis spatium usque ad totum 
futurum annum 1S65 et non ultra, a Vobis, Venerabiles Fratres. aliii 
legitimis locorum Ordinariis statuendum, eodem prorsus modo et forma, qua 
ab initio Bupremi Nostri Pontiticatus concessimus per Apostolicas Nostras 
Litteras in forma Brevis die 20 mensis Novembris anno 1S46 datas. et ad uni- 
versum episeopaleni vestrum Ordinem missas. quarum initium "Arcano Di- 
vinae Providentiae consilio. et cum omnibus eisdem facultatibus, quae per 
ipsas Litteras a Nobis datae fuerunt. Volumus tamen, ut ea omnia ser- 
ventur, quae in commemoratis Litteris praescripta sunt, et ea excipiantur 

i S. Iguat. M. ad Philadelph. 3. - Psalin. US. 

3 S. Caelest. epist. 22 ad Synod. Ephes. apud Coust. p. 1200. 

* s. Innocent. I. Epist. 29 ad Episc. Cone. Carinas, apud Coust. p. 891. 

* S. Leon. EpisU 156, al. 125. 6 Pius VII. Epist. Encye. Diu satis 15 Mail 1800. 



ENCYCLICAL. 6 



episcopal ministry. For from your extraordinary pastoral zeal We expect 
that, taking up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and greatly 
strengthened by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, you will, with redoubled 
endeavors, be daily more upon the watch that the faithful intrusted to your 
charge " keep themselves from noxious plants, which Jesus Christ does not 
tend, because they are not the planting of the Father." l Never cease, also, 
to impress upon the said faithful, that all true felicity flows upon man from our 
august religion, its doctrine and practice ; and that happy is the people whose 
God is their Lord. 2 Teach that "'kingdoms rest on the foundation of the 
catholic Faith ; 3 and that nothing is so deadly, leads so headlong to a fall, is 
so exposed to all dangers, as when, believing this alone to be sufficient for us 
that we received free will at our birth, we seek nothing further from the Lord, 
that is, when forgetting our Creater, we deny his power in order to show that 
we are free.' 4 And do not fail also to teach that the royal power was given not 
alone for the governance of the world, but most of all for the protection of the 
Church ; 5 and that there is nothing which can be more to the advantage and glory 
of Princes and Kings than (as another most wise and courageous Predecessor 
of Ours, St. Felix, wrote to the Emperor Zeno) to 'permit the catholic Church 
to make use of her laws, and allow no one to oppose her liberty. For it is cer- 
tainly beneficial to their interests to study, whenever the affairs of God are con- 
cerned, according to his appointment to subject the royal will to the Priests of 
Christ, not to set it above them. 1 " 6 

But if always, Venerable Brethren, it is especially now (amidst such great 
calamities both of the Church and of civil society, amidst so great a conspiracy 
of the adversaries of the catholic cause and of this Apostolic See, and so great 
a mass of errors,) absolutely necessary to approach with confidence the throne 
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace in timely aid. Therefore We 
have thought it well to stir up the piety of all the faithful, that, together with Us 
and You, they may incessantly pray and beseech the most merciful Father of 
light and pity, with most fervent and humble prayers, and in the fullness of faith 
flee always to our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed us to God in his blood, and 
earnestly and constantly supplicate His most sweet Heart, the victim of most 
burning love toward us, that he would draw all things to himself by the bonds 
of his love, and that all men inflamed by his most holy love may walk worthily 
according to His Heart, pleasing God in all things, bearing fruit in every good 
work. But inasmuch as, without doubt, the prayers of men are more pleasing 
to God if they approach Him with minds free from all stain, therefore we have 
determined with Apostolic liberality to open to Christ's faithful the heavenly 
treasures of the Church, committed to Us to dispense, in order that the said 
faithful, being more earnestly enkindled to true piety, and cleansed through 
the Sacrament of Penance from the defilement of their sins, may with greater 
confidence pour forth their prayers to God, and obtain His mercy and grace. 

By this Letter, therefore, in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, we grant to 
the faithful of the catholic world, all and singular, of both sexes, a Plenary 
Indulgence in the form of a Jubilee, during the space of one month only within 
the whole coming year, 1865, and not beyond, to be fixed by Y"ou, Venerable 
Brethren, and other legitimate local Ordinaries, in the very same manner and 
form in which We granted it at the beginning of Our supreme Pontificate by 
Our Apostolic Letter in the form of a Brief, dated November 20, 1846, and 
addressed to all your episcopal Order, beginning, " Arcano Divinae Providentiae 
consilio," and with all the same powers which were given by Us in that Let- 
ter. We will, however, that all things be observed which were prescribed in 
the aforesaid Letter, and those things be excepted, which we declared to be 

i St, Ignatius M. Epist. to the Philadelphians, ch. 3. > Pa. 143. 

3 St. Cselest. Epist. 22, to the Synod of Ephes. apud Const, p. 1200. 
♦ St. Innocent I. Epist. 29, to the Bishops of the Council of Carth. apud Const, p. 891. 
*St. Leo. Epist. 156 (125). epi US yil. Encyclica " Diu satis," May 15, 1800. 



SYLLABUS. 



quae excepta esse declaravimus. Atque id concedimus, non obstantibus in 
contrariuni facie ntibus quibuscumque, etiam speciali et individua inentione, 
ac derogatione dignis. Ut autem ornnis dubitatio et difficultas anioveatur, 
earumdern Litterarum exemplar ad Vos perferri jussiinus. 

"Rogemus, Venerabiles Fratres, de intimo corde et de tota mente miseri- 
cordiam Dei, quia et ipse addidit dicens: misericordiam autem meam non 
dispergam ab eis. Petamus et accipiemus, et si accipiendi mora et tardi- 
tas fuerit, quoniam graviter offendimus, pulsemus, quia et pulsanti aperi- 
etur, si niodo pulsent ostium preces, gemitus, et lacrimae nostrae, quibus 
insistere etimmorari oportet, et si sit unanimis oratio .... unusqius- 

que oret Deum non pro se tantum, sed pro omnibus fratribus, sicut Dominus 
orare nos docuit." l Quo vero facilius Deus Nostris, Vestrisque, et omnium 
fidelium precibus, votisque annuat, cum omnia fiducia deprecatricem apud 
Eum adhibeamus Immaculatam sanctissimanque Deiparam Virginem Mariam, 
quae cunctas haereses interemit inuniverso mundo, quaeque omnium nostrum 

amantissima Mater "tota suavis est ac plena misericordiae 

omnibus sese exorabilem, omnibus clementissimam praebet, 

omnium necessitates amplissimo quodam miseratur affectu," 2 atque utpote 
Regina adstans a dextris Unigeniti Filii Sui Domini Xostri Jesu Christi in 
vestitu deaurato circumamicta rarietate nihil est, quod ab Eo impetrare non 
valeat. Suffragia quoque petamus Beatissimi Petri Apostolorum Principis, et 
Coapostoli ejus Pauli, omniumque Sanctorum Caelitum, qui facti jam amici 
Dei pervenerunt ad caelestia regna, et coronati possident palmam, ac de sua 
immortalitate securi, de nostra sunt salute solliciti. 



Denique caelestium omnium donorum copiam Vobis a Deo ex animo ad- 
precantes singularis Xostrae in Yos caritatis pignus Apostolicam Benedicti- 
onem ex intimo corde profectam Vobis ipsis, Venerabiles Fratres, cunctis- 
que Clericis Laicisque fidelibus curae vestrae commissis peramanter im- 
pertimus. 

Datum Romae apud S. Petrum die VIII Decembris anno 1864, decimo a 
Dogmatica Definitione Immaculatae Conceptionis Deiparae Virginis Mariae. 
Pontificatus Nostri Anno Decimonono. 

PIUS J?^>. T2ZL. 



SYLLABUS 

COMPLECTENS PRAECIPUOS NOSTRAE AETATIS ERR ORES QUI XO- 

TANTUR IN ALLOCUTIONIBUS CONSISTORIALIBUS IN EX- 

CYCLICIS ALIISQUE APOSTOLICIS LITTERIS SANC- 

TISSIMI DOMINI NOSTRI PII PAPAE IX. 

§1- 

PANTHEISMUS, NATURALISMUS ET RATIONALISMUS ABSOLUTUS. 

I. Nullum supremum, sapientissimum providentissimumque Xumen divi- 
num exsistit, ab hac rerum universitate distinctum, et Deus idem est ac rerum 

iS. Cyprian, Epist. 11. 

2 S. Bernard, Serm. de duodecim praerogativis B. M. V. ex verbis Apocalyp. 



SYLLABUS. 



excepted. And we grant this, notwithstanding any thing whatever to the con- 
trary, even if it were worthy of special and individual mention and derogation. 
In order, however, that every doubt and difficulty may be removed, We have 
commanded a copy of said Letter to be sent You. 

" Let us implore," Venerable Brethren, " from our inmost heart and with 
( Our whole mind the mercy of God, because He Himself has said, 'I will not 
remove my mercy from them.' Let us ask and we shall receive ; and if there 
be delay and tardiness in our receiving, because we have gravely offended, let 
us knock, because to him that knocketh it shall be opened, if only our prayers, 
groans, and tears knock at the door, wherein we must persist and persevere, 

and that our prayer may be unanimous let each one pray to 

God, not for himself alone, but for all the brethren, as the Lord has taught us 
to pray." x But in order that God may the more readily assent to all our 
prayers and desires, Ours, Yours, and those of all the faithful, let us with all 
confidence employ, as our intercessor with Him, the Immaculate and most 
holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, who has slain all heresies throughout the 

world, and who, the most loving Mother of us all, is all sweet and full 

of mercy, shows herself exorable to all, to all most merciful, pities 

the necessities of all with a most large affection," 2 and standing as Queen at the 
right hand of Her Only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, radiantly clothed 
in a golden vestment, can obtain from Him whatever she will. Let us also 
seek "the intercession of the Most Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, 
and of Paul, his fellow-apostle, and of all the Saints in Heaven, who, having 
already become God's friends, have entered into the heavenly kingdom, and 
being crowned bear their palms, and secure of their own immortality are anx- 
ious for our salvation. 

Finally, imploring from Our heart for You the fullness of all heavenly gifts, 
We most lovingly, as a pledge of Our peculiar love toward You, impart, from 
Our inmost heart, the Apostolic Benediction to You, Venerable Brethren, to 
ail the Clergy, and to all Lay Faithful committed to your care. 

Given at Rome, from St. Peter's, the 8th day of December, in the year 1864, 
the tenth from the Dogmatic Definition of the Immaculate Conception of the 
Virgin Mary, Mother of God. 

In the nineteenth year of Our Pontificate. 

IPOIPE DPITTS IX. 



SYLLABUS 

EMBRACING THE PRINCIPAL ERRORS OF OUR TIME WHICH ARE 
CENSURED IN CONSISTORAL ALLOCUTIONS, ENCYCLICALS, 
AND OTHER APOSTOLIC LETTERS OF OUR MOST 
HOLY FATHER, POPE PIUS IX. 

§ I- 

PANTHEISM, NATURALISM, AND ABSOLUTE RATIONALISM. 

I. There is no supreme, all-wise and all-provident divine Being, distinct 
from this universe, and God is the same as Nature, and therefore liable to 

» St, Cyprian Epist. 11. 

2 St. Bernard. Sermon on the twelve prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from 
the words of the Apocalypse. 



8 SYLLABUS. 



natura et iccirco immutationibus obnoxius, Deusque reapse fit in homine et 
mundo, atque omnia Deus sunt et ipsissimam Dei habent substantiam; ac 
una eademque res est Deus cum mundo et proinde spiritus cum materia, 
necessitas cum libertate, verum cum falso, bonum cum malo, et justum cum 
injusto. 

Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

II. Neganda est omnis Dei actio in homines et mundum. 

Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

III. Humana ratio, nullo prorsus Dei respectu habito, unicus est veri et 
falsi, boni et mali arbiter, sibi ipsi est lex et naturalibus suis viribus ad 
hominum ac populorum bonum curandum sumcit. 

Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

IV. Omnes religionis veritates ex nativa humanae rationis vi derivant; 
hinc ratio est princeps norma, qua homo cognitionem omnium cujuscumque 
generis veritatum assequi possit ac debeat. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 
Epist. encycl. Singulari quidem 17 rnartii 1856. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

V. Divina revelatio est imperfecta et iccirco subjecta continuo et indefinito 
progressui, qui humanae rationis progression! respondeat. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

VI. Christi fides humanae refragatur rationi, divinaque revelatio non solum 
nihil prodest, verum etiam nocet hominis perfectioni. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

VII. Prophetiae et miracula, in sacris Litteris exposita et narrata, sunt 
poetarum commenta, et christianae fidei mysteria philosophicarum investi- 
gationum summa; et utriusque Testament! libris mythica continentur in- 
venta; ipseque Jesus Christus est mythica fictio. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

§n. 

RATIONALISMUS MODERATUS. 

VIII. Quum ratio humana ipsi religioni aequiparetur, iccirco theologicae 
disciplinae perinde ac philosophicae tractandae sunt. 

Alloc. Singulari quadam perfusi 6 decembris 1854. 

IX. Omnia indiscriminatim dogmata religionis christianae sunt objectum 
naturalis scientiae seu philosophiae ; et humana ratio historice tantum exculta 
potest ex suis naturalibus viribus et principiis ad veram de omnibus etiam 
reconditioribus dogmatibus scientiam pervenire, modo haec dogmata ipsi 
rationi tanquam objectum proposita fuerint. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Gravissimas 11 decembris 1862. 
Epist. ad eundem Tuas libenter 21 decembris 1863. 

X. Quum aliud sit philosophus, aliud philosophia, ille jus et officium habet 
ee submittendi auctoritati, quam veram ipse probaverit; at philosophia neque 
potest neque debet ulli sese submittere auctoritati. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Gravis.nmas 11 decembris 1862. 
Epist. ad eundem Tuas libenter 21 decembris 1863. 

XI. Ecclesia non solum non debet in philosophiam unquam animadvertere, 
verum etiam debet ipsius philosophiae tolerare errores, eique relinquere, ut 
ipsa se corrigat. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Gh-avissimas 11 decembris 1862. 



SYLLABUS. 



change; and God becomes actual [only] in man and in the world, and all 
things are God and have the self-same substance with God ; and God and the 
world are one and the same thing, and therefore spirit is the same as matter, 
necessity as liberty, truth as falsehood, good as evil, and just as unjust. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

II. All action of God on man and on the world is to be denied. 

Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

III. Human reason, without any regard whatever to God, is the one judge 
of truth and falsehood, of good and evil ; it is a law unto itself, and its natural 
powers are sufficient to provide for the welfare of men and nations. 

Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

IV. All the truths of religion flow from the inborn power of human reason ; 
hence reason is the highest norm whereby man can and must attain the knowl- 
edge of all truths of every kind. 

Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Encyclica Singulari quidem, March 17, 1856. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

V. Divine revelation is imperfect and therefore subject to continual and in- 
definite progress, corresponding to the progression of human reason. 

Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

VI. The christian faith is opposed to human reason, and divine revelation 

not only does not profit but even injures man's perfection. 

Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

VII. The prophecies and miracles recorded and narrated in the holy Scrip- 
tures are the fictions of poets, and the mysteries of the christian faith are the 
result of philosophical investigations ; and in the books of both Testaments are 
contained mythical inventions ; and Jesus Christ himself is a mythical fiction. 

Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

§n. 

MODERATE RATIONALISM. 

VIII. Inasmuch as human reason is on an equality with religion itself, 
therefore theological studies are to be handled in the same manner as philo- 
sophical. 

Allocution Singulari quadam perfusi, Dec. 9, 1854. 

IX. All the dogmas of the christian religion are without discrimination an 
object of natural science or philosophy; and human reason, with mere histori- 
cal cultivation, is able from its own natural powers and principles to arrive at 
true knowledge of even the more abstruse dogmas, if only these dogmas have 
been proposed to reason itself as its object. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munieh-Frising, Gravissimas, Dec. 11, 1862. 
Letter to the same, Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1S63. 

X. Inasmuch as the philosopher is one thing, philosophy another, the former 
has the right and duty of subordinating himself to that authority of whose 
truth he has satisfied himself; but philosophy neither can nor ought to submit 
to any authority. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising, Gravissimas, Dec. 11, 1862. 
Letter to the same, Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1863. 

XI. The Church not only ought never to animadvert on philosophy, but 
ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy, and leave it to her to correct herself. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising, Gravissimas, Dec. 11, 1862. 



SYLLABUS. 



XIT. Apostolicae Seclis romanaruinque Congregationum decreta liberum 
scientiae progressum inipediunt. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Fi'ising. Tuas libenter 21 decembris 1863. 

XIII. Methodus et principia, quibus antiqui Boctores scholastici Theolo 
giani excoluerunt, temporum nostroruni necessitatibus scientiarumque pro- 
gressui inininie congruunt. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter 21 decembris 1863. 

XIV. Philosophia tractanda est, nulla supernaturalis revelationis habita 
ratione. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter 21 decembris 1863. 

N. B. Cum rationalismi systemate cohaerent maximam partem errores 
Antonii Guenther, qui damnantur in Epist. ad Card. Archiep. Coloniensem 
Eximiam tuam 15 junii 1847, et in Epist. ad Episc. Wratislaviensem Dolore 
hand mediocri 30 aprilis 1860. 

§111. 

INDIFFERENTISMTJ.S, LATITUDINARISMUS. 

XV. Liberum cuique homini est earn amplecti ac profiteri religionem, 

quam rationis lumine quis ductus veram putaverit. 

Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 1851. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1802. 

XVI. Homines in cujusvis religionis cultu viam aeternae salutis reperire 
aeternamque salutem assequi possunt. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 

Alloc. Ubi primum 17 decembris 1847. 

Ep. encycl. Singulari quidem 17 martii 1856. 

XVII. Saltern bene sperandum est de aeterna illorum omnium salute, qui 
in vera Christi Ecclesia nequaquam versantur. 

Alloc. Singulari quadam 9 decembris 1854. 
Epist. encycl. Quanto conficiamur 17 augusti 1863. 

XV HI. Protestant! sinus non aliud est, quam diversa verae ejusdem chris- 
tianae religionis forma, in qua aeque ac in Ecclesia catholica Deo placere 
datum est. 

Epist. encycl. Noscitis et Nobiscum 8 decembris 1849. 

§iv. 

SOCIALISMUS, COMMUNISMUS, SOCIETATE8 CLANDESTINAE, SOCIETATES BIB- 
LICAE, SOCIETATES CLERIOO-LIBERALES. 

Ejusmodi pestes saepe gravissimisque verborum formulis reprobantur in 
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novemb. 1846; in Alloc. Quibus quantisque 20 
april. 1849; in Epist. encycl. Noscitis et Nobiscum 8 decemb. 1849; in Allocut. 
Singulari quadam 9 decemb. 1854; in Epist. encycl. Quanto conficiamur moe- 
rore 10 augusti 1863. 

§v. 

ERRORES DE ECCLE3IAE EJUSQUE JURIBUS. 

XIX. Ecclesia non est vera perfectaque societas plane libera, nee pollet 
suis propriis et constantibus juribus, sibi a divino suo fundatore collatis, sed 
chilis potestatis est, definire quae sint Ecclesiae jura ac limites, intra quos 
eadam jura exercere queat. 

Alloc. Singulari quadam 9 decembris 1854. 
Alloc. Mult is gravibusque 17 decembris I860. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 



SYLLABUS. 



XII. The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congregations im- 
pede the free progress of science. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising, Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1863. 

XIII. The method and the principles, according to which the ancient scho- 
lastic Doctors cultivated Theology, are entirely unsuitable to the needs of our 
time and to the progress of the sciences. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising, Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1863. 

XIV. Philosophy must be treated without any regard to supernatural reve- 
lation. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising, Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1863. 

N. B. Connected with the system of rationalism are for the most part the 
errors of Antonius Guenther, which are condemned in the Epistle to the Car- 
dinal Archbishop of Cologne: Eximiam titam, June 15, 1857; and in the Epis- 
tle to the Bishop of Breslau : Dolore haud mediocre, April 30, 1860. 

§IIL 

INDIFFERENTISM, LATITUDINARIANISM. 

XV. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion, which, guided 

by the light of reason, he holds to be true. 

Apostolic Letter Multipliees inter, June 10, 1851. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

XVI. Men may in the practice of any religion whatever find the way of 
eternal salvation and attain eternal salvation. 

Encyclica Quipluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Allocution Ubi primum, Dec. 17, 1847. 
Encyclica Singulari quidem, March 17, 1856. 

XVII. One may well hope at least for the eternal salvation of all those, who 
are in nowise in the true Church of Christ. 

Allocution Singulari quadam, Dec. 9, 1854. 
Encyclica Quanto conficiamur, Aug. 17, 1863. 

XVIII. Protestanism is nothing else than a different form of the same true 
christian religion, in which it is possible to please God just as in the catholic 
Church. 

Encyclica Noscitis et Nobiscum, Dec. 8, 1849. 

§iv. 

SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, SECRET SOCIETIES, BIBLE SOCIETIES, LIBERAL 
CLERICAL SOCIETIES. 

Pests of this kind are often reprobated, and in the most severe terms in the 
Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846; in the iVllocution Quibus quantisque, 
April 20, 1849; in the Encyclica Noscitis et Nobiscum, Dec. 8, 1849; in the 
Allocution Singulari quadam, Dec. 9, 1854; in the Encyclica Quanto conficia- 
mur moerore, Aug. 10, 1863. 

iv. 

ERRORS CONCERNING THE CHURCH AND HER RIGHTS. 

XIX. The Church is not a true and perfect, entirely free society, nor does 
she enjoy her own proper and permanent rights, conferred upon her by her 
divine founder, but it is the business of the civil power to define what are the 
rights of the Church, and the limits within which she may exercise them. 

Allocution Singulari quadam, Dec. 9,1854. 
Allocution Multis gravibusque, Dec. 17, I860. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

9 



10 SYLLABUS. 



XX. Ecclesiastica potestas suam auctoritatem exercere non debet absque 
civilis gubernii venia et assensu. 

Alloc. Meminit unusquisque 30 septembris 1861. 

XXI. Ecclesia non habet potestatem doginatice definiendi, religionem 
catholicae Ecclesiae esse unice veram religionem. 

Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 1851. 

XXII. Obligatio, qua catholici magistri et scriptores oranino adstringuntur, 
coarctatur in iis tantum, quae ab infillibili Ecclesiae judicio veluti fidei dog- 
mata ab omnibus credenda proponuntur. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter 21 decemb. 1863. 

XXIII. Romani Pontifices et Concilia oecumenica a limitibus suae po- 
testatis recesserunt, jura Principum usurparunt, atque etiam in rebus fidei 
et morum definiendis errarunt. 

Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter' 10 junii 1851. 

XXIV. Ecclesia vis inferendae potestatem non habet, neque potestatem 
ullam temporalem directam vel indirectam. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

XXV. Praeter potestatem episcopatui inhaerentem alia est attributa tem- 
poralis potestas, a civili imperio vel expresse vel tacite concessa, revocanda 
propterea, cum libuerit, a civili imperio. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

XXVI. Ecclesia non habet nativum ac legitimum jus acquirendi ac pos- 
sidendi. 

Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 
Epist. encycl. Incredibili 17 septembris 1863. 

XXVII. iSacri Ecclesiae ministri Romanusque Pontifex ab omni rerum 
temporalium cura ac dominio sunt omnino excludendi. 

Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

XXVIII. Episcopis, sine Gubernii venia, fas non est vel ipsas apostolicas 
litteras promulgare. 

Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

XXIX. Gratiae a Romano Pontifice concessae existimari debent tanquam 
irritae, nisi per Gubernium fuerint imploratae. 

Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

XXX. Ecclesiae et personarum ecclesiasticarum immunitas a jure civili 
ortum habuit. 

Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 1851. 

XXXI. Ecclesiasticum forum pro temporalibus clericorum causis sive 

civilibus sive criminalibus omnino de medio tollendum est, etiam inconsulta 

et reclamante Apostolica Sede. 

Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septembris 1852. 
Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

XXXII. Absque ulla naturalis juris et aequitatis violatione potest abrogari 
personalis immunitas, qua clerici ab onere subeundae exercendaeque militiae 
eximuntur; banc vero abrogationem postulat civilis progressus, maxime in 
societate ad formam liberioris regiminis constituta. 

Epist. ad Episc. Montisregal. Singularis Nobisque 29 septembris 1864. 

XXXT1I. Non pertinet unice ad ecclesiasticam jurisdictionis potestatem 
proprio ac nativo jure dirigere theologicarum rerum doctrinam. 
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter 21 decembris 1863. 



SYLLABUS. lO 



XX. The ecclesiastical power may not exercise its authority without the 
permission and assent of the civil government. 

Allocution Meminit ' unusquisque, Sept. 30, 1861. 

XXI. The Church has not the power of dogmatically deciding that the re- 
ligion of the catholic Church is the only true religion. 

Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 

XXII. The obligation by which catholic teachers and writers are absolutely 
bound, is confined to those things alone which are propounded by the infallible 
judgment of the Church as dogmas of faith to be believed by all. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising, Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1863. 

XXIII. The Roman Pontiffs and the oecumenical Councils have exceeded 
the limits of their power, usurped the rights of Princes, and erred even in the 
definition of matters of faith and morals. 

Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 

XXIV. The Church has no power to employ force, nor has she any temporal 
power direct or indirect. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

XXV. Beside the power inhering in the episcopate, there is still another 
temporal power, which has been granted expressly or tacitly by the civil gov- 
ernment, and which may therefore be revoked by the civil government at its 
pleasure. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

XXVI. The Church has no innate and legitimate right of acquiring and 
possessing. 

Allocution Nunquam fore, Dec. 15. 1856. 
Encyclica Incredibili, Sept. 17, 1863. 

XXVII. The consecrated ministers of the Church and the Roman Pontiff 
should be entirely excluded from all charge and dominion over temporal 
things. 

Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

XXVIII. Bishops have no right, without permission of the Government, even 
to publish apostolic letters. 

Allocution Nunquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

XXIX. Graces granted by the Roman Pontiff should be accounted void, un- 
less they have been sought through the Government. 

Allocution Nunquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

XXX. The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons had its 
origin in civil law. 

Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 

XXXI. The jurisdiction of the Church in the temporal causes of the clergy, 
whether civil or criminal, ought to be entirely abolished, even without consult- 
ing, and against the protest of, the Apostolic See. 

Allocution Acerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 
Allocution Numquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

XXXII. Without any violation of natural right and equity that personal im- 
munity may bo abrogated, whereby the clergy arc exempted from the burden 
of military duty and ser/ „e ; and such abrogation is required by civil progress, 
especially in a society constituted on the model of free government. 

Letter to the Bishop of Mondovi Singularis Nobisque, Sept. 29, 1864. 

XXXI II. It does not belong exclusively to the jurisdictional power of the 
Church, in virtue of her own proper and inherent right, to direct the teaching 
of theology. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Frising Tuas libenter, Dec. 21, 1863. 



11 SYLLABUS. 



XXXIV. Doctrina coraparantiuin Roinanuin Pontificem Principi libero et 
agenti in universa Ecclesia. doctrina est quae medio aevo praevaluit. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

XXXV. Nihil vetat, alicujus Concilii generalis sententia aut universorum 
populorum facto, sumrnuin Pontificatuin ab roniario Episcopo atque Urbe ad 
aliuni Episcopuni aliamque civitatem transferri. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

XXXVI. Nationalia concilii definitio nullain aliam admittit disputationem, 
eivilisque administrate rem ad hosce terminos exigere potest. 

Lirt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

XXXVII. Institui possunt nationales Ecclesiae ab auctoritate Romani 

Pontificis subductae planeque divisae. 

Alloc. Muttis gravibusque 17 decerabris I860. 
Alloc Jamdu'dum cernimus 18 niartii 1861. 

XXXVIII. Divisioni Ecclesiae in orientalem atque occidentalem nimia 
Eomanorum Pontificum arbitria contulerunt. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

§vi. 

ERRORES DE SOCIETATE CIVILI TUM IX SE, TUM IX SUIS AD ECCLESIAM 
KELATIOXIBUS SPECTATAE. 

XXXIX. Peipublicae status, utpote omnium jurium origo et fons, jure 
quodam pollet nullis circumscripta llmitibus. 

Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 ju'nii 1862. 

XL. Catholicae Ecclesiae doctrina hunianae societatis bono et commodis 
adversatur. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 
Alloc, Quibus quantisque 20 aprilis 1849. 

XLI. Civili potestati vel ab infideli imperante exercitae competit potestas 
indirecta negativa in sacra; eidem proinde competit nedum jus quod vocant 
exequatur, sed etiam jus appellationis, quam nuncupant, ab abusu. 
Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 



XLLT. In conflictu legum utriusque potestatis, jus civile praevalet. 
Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

XLIII. Laica potestas auctoritatem habet rescindendi. declarandi ac faci- 
endi irritas solemnes conventiones (vulgo Concordata) super usu jurium ad 
ecclesiasticam immunitatem pertinentium cum Sede Apostolica initas, sine 
hujus consensu, immo et ea reclamante. 

Alloc. In Oonsistoriali 1 novembris 1850. 
Alloc. Multis gravibusque 17 decembris 1860. 

XLIV. Civilis auctoritas potest se immiscere rebus, quae ad religionem, 
mores et regimem spirituale pertinent. Hinc potest de instructionibus judi- 
care, quas Ecclesiae pastores ad conscientiarum normam pro suo munere 
edunt. quin etiam potest de divinorum sacramentorum administratione et dis- 
positionibus ad ea suscipienda necessariis decernere. 

Alloc. I?i Oonsistoriali 1 novembris 1850. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 



SYLLABUS. 11 



XXXIV. The doctrine of those who compare the Roman Pontiff to a free 
Prince, exercising power in the universal Church, is a doctrine which pre- 
vailed in the middle age. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug 22, 1851. 

XXXV. Nothing forbids, that by the decision of a general Council, or by 
the act of all peoples, the supreme Pontificate be transferred from the Roman 
Bishop and City, to another Bishop and another state. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

XXXVI. The decision of a national Council admits of no further dispute, 
and the civil administration may proceed upon this as final authority. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

XXXVII. National Churches may be instituted, which are withdrawn and 

totally separated from the authority of the Roman Pontiff. 

Allocution Multis gravibusque, Dec. 17, 1860. 
Allocution Jamdudum cernimus, March 18, 1861. 

XXXVIII. The exceedingly arbitrary decisions of the Roman Pontiffs con- 
tributed to divide the Church into Eastern and Western. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 



§vi. 

ERRORS CONCERNING CIVIL SOCIETY, BOTH IN ITSELF AND IN ITS RELATIONS 

TO THE CHURCH. 

XXXIX. The state, as being the origin and fountain of all rights, posseses 
a right, which is circumscribed by no limits. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

XL. The doctrine of the catholic Church is opposed to the good and the in- 
terests of human society. 

Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Allocution Quibus quantisque, April 20, 1849. 

XLI. The civil power, even when exercised by an unbelieving [i e. non- 
catholic] ruler, has an indirect negative power over things sacred; it has 
therefore not only the so-called right of exequatur, but also the so-called right 
of appeal [against ecclesiastical ordinances involving the civil Government] on 
account of the abuse [of ecclesiastical power.] 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

XLII. In case of conflict between the laws of the two powers, civil law takes 
the precedence. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

XLIII. The lay power has the authority to rescind, to declare and make 
void solemn conventions (commonly called Concordats), concerning the exer- 
cise of rights pertaining to ecclesiastical immunity, which have been entered 
into with the Apostolic See, without the consent of this See, and even against 
its protest. 

Allocution In Consistoriali, Nov. 1, 1851. 
Allocution Multis gravibusque, Dec. 17, 1860. 

XLIV. The civil authority may mix itself up in matters which pertain to 
religion, morals, and spiritual government. Hence it may judge concerning 
the instructions, which the pastors of the Church issue in accordance with 
their office for the guidance of consciences; nay, it may even decree concern- 
ing the administration of the holy sacraments and the dispositions necessary 
for their reception. 

Allocution In Consistoriali, Nov. 1, 1850. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 



12 SYLLABUS. 



XLV. Totum scholarum publicarum regimen, in quibus juventus christ:- 
anae alicujus Reipublicae instituitur, episcopalibus duuitaxat seminariis ali- 
qua ratione exceptis, potest ac debet attribui auctoritati civili, et ita quidem 
attribui, ut nullum alii cuicumque auctoritati recognoscatur jus immiscendi 
se in disciplina scholarum, in regimine studioruin, in graduum collatione, in 
delectu aut approbatione magistrorum. 

Alloc. In Consistoriali 1 novembris 1850. 
Alloc. Quibus luctuosissimis 5 septernbris 1851. 

XL VI. Immo in ipsis clericorum seminariis methodus studiorum adhibenda 
civili auctoritati subjicitur. 

Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

XLVII. Postulat optima civilis societatis ratio, ut populares scholae, quae 
patent omnibus cujusque e populo classis pueris, ac publica universim Insti- 
tuta, quae litteris severioribusque disciplinis tradendis et educationi juventu- 
tis curandae sunt destinata, eximantur ab omni Ecclesiae auctoritate, mode- 
ratrice vi et ingerentia, plenoque civilis ac politicae auctoritatis arbitrio 
subjiciantur ad imperantium placita et ad communium aetatis opinionum 
amussim. 

Epist. ad. Archiep. Friburg. Quum non sine 14 julii 1864. 

XL VIII. Catholicis viris probari potest ea juventutis instituendae ratio, 
quae sit a catholica fide et ab Ecclesiae potestate sejuncta, quaeque rerum 
dumtaxat naturalium scientiam ac terrenae socialis vitae fines tantummodo 
vel saltern primario spectet. 

Epist. ad Archiep. Friburg. Quum non sine 14 julii 1864. 

XLIX. Civilis auctoritas potest impedire, quominus sacrorum Antistites et 
fideles populi cum Romano Pontifice libere ac mutuo communicent. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

L. Laica auctoritas habet per se jus praesentandi episcopos et potest ab 
illis exigere, at meant dioecesium procurationem antequam ipsi canonicam 
a S. Sede institutionem et apostolicas litteras accipiant. 
Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

LI. Immo laicum Gubernium habet jus deponendi ab exercitio pastoralis 
ministerii episcopos, neque tenetur obedire Romano Pontifici in iis, quae 
episcopatuum et episcoporum respiciunt institutionem. 

Litt. Apost. MultipUces inter 10 junii 1851. 
Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septenibris 1852. 

LTI. Gubernium potest suo jure immutare aetatem ab Ecclesia praescrip- 
tam pro religiosa tarn mulierum quain virorum professione, omnibusque reli- 
giosis familiis indicere, ut neminem sine suo permissu ad solemnia vota nun- 
cupanda admittant. 

Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

LIII. Abrogandae sunt leges quae ad religiosarum familiarum statum 
tutandum, earumque jura et officia pertinent ; immo potest civile gubernium iis 
omnibus auxilium praestere, qui a suscepto religiosae vitae instituto deficere 
ac solemnia vota frangere velint; pariterc{ue potest religiosas easdem familias 
perinde ac collegiatas Ecclesias et beneficia simplicia etiam juris patronatus 
penitus extinguere, illorumque bona et reditus civilis potestatis administra- 
tioni et arbitrio subjicere et vindicare. 

Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septernbris 1852. 
Alloc. Probe memiixeritis 22 jauuarii 1855. 
Alloc. Cum saepe 26 julii 1855. 

LIV. Reges et Principes ncn solum ab Ecclesiae jurisdictione eximuntur, 



SYLLABUS. 12 



XLV. The whole control of the public schools, wherein the youth of any 
christian State is educated, only the episcopal seminaries being in some degree 
excepted, may and should be assigned to the civil authority, and so assigned 
to it, that no right be recognized, in any other authority whatever, to interfere 
with the school discipline, the direction of studies, the conferring of degrees, 
the selection or approbation of teachers. 

Allocution In consistoriali, Nov. 1, 1850. 
Allocution Quibus luctuosissimus, Sept. 5, 1851. 

XL VI. Nay, in the very seminaries [for the education] of the clergy, the 
method of study to be adopted is subject to the civil authority. 
Allocution Nunquatn fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

XL VII. The best constitution of civil society requires that the public 
schools, which are open to the children of all classes, and that public institu- 
tions universally, which are devoted to higher literary and scientific instruc- 
tion and to the education of youth, be released from all authority of the Church, 
from her moderating influence and interference, and subjected wholly to the 
will of the civil and political authority, [to be conducted] according to the 
pleasure of the rulers and the standard of the common opinions of the age. 
Letter to the Archbishop of Freiburg, Quum non sine, July 14, 1864. 

XL VIII. That method of instructing youth can be approved by catholic 
men, which is separated from the catholic faith and from the power of the 
Church, and which has regard exclusively, or at least principally, to a knowl- 
edge of natural things only, and to the ends of social life on earth. 

Letter to the Archbishop of Freiburg, Quum, non sine, July 14, 1864. 

XLIX. The civil authority may prevent the bishops and faithful peoples 
from having free and mutual communication with the Roman Pontiff. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

L. The lay authority has of itself the right of presenting bishops, and may 
require of them, that they enter on the administration of their dioceses before 
they receive from the Holy See canonical institution and apostolical letters. 
Allocution Nunquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

LI. The lay Government has even the right of deposing bishops from the 
exercise of their pastoral ministry ; nor is it bound to obey the Koman Pontiff 
in those things which concern the establishment of bishoprics and the appoint- 
ment of bishops. 

Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 
Allocution Acerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 

LII. The Government may, in its own right, change the age prescribed by 
the Church for the religious profession of both women and men, and may for- 
bid religious orders to admit any one to solemn vows without its permission. 
Allocution Nunquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

LIII. The laws should be abrogated which relate to protecting the condition 
of the religious orders, and to their rights and duties; nay, the civil govern- 
ment may give assistance to all those, who wish to desert their adopted mode 
of religious life and to break their solemn vows; and in like manner it may 
altogether abolish the said religious orders and also collegiate churches and 
simple benefices, even those under the right of a patron, and subject and ap- 
propriate their goods and revenues to the administration and free disposal of 
the civil power. 

Allocution Acerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 
Allocution Probe memineritis, Jan. 22, 1855. 
Allocution Cum saepe, July 26, 1855. 

LIV. Kings and Princes are not only exempted from the jurisdiction of the 



13 SYLLABUS. 



verum etiam in quaestionibus jurisdictionis dirimendis superiores sunt Eo- 
clesia. 

Litt. Apost. Multiplices inter 10 junii 1851. 

LV. Ecclesia a Statu, Statusque ab Ecclesia sejungendus est. 
Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septembris 1852. 

§VIL 

ERRORES DE ETHICA NATURALI ET CHRISTIANA. 

LVI. Morum leges divina haud egent sanctions, mininieque opus est, ut 
humanae leges ad naturae jus conformentur aut obligandi vim a Deo accipiant. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

LVII. Philosophicarum rerum morumque scientia, itemque civiles leges 
possunt et debent a divina et ecclesiastica auctoritate declinare. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

LVIII. Aliae vires non sunt agnoscendae nisi illae quae in materia positae 
sunt, et omnis morum disciplina honestasque collocari debet in cumulandis 
et augendis quovis modo divitiis ac in voluptatibus explendis. 

Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

Epist. encycl. Quanto conficiamur 10 augusti 1863. 

LIX. Jus in materiali facto consistit, et omnia hominum officia sunt nomen 
inane, et omnia humaua facta juris vim habent. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1863. 

LX. Auctoritas nihil aliud est nisi numeri et materialium virium summa. 
Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 

LXI. Fortunata facti injustitia nullum juris sanctitati detrhnentum affert. 
Alloc. Jamdudum cemimus 18 martii 1861. 

LXII. Proclamandum est et observandum principium quod vocant de non- 
interventu. 

Alloc. JVovos et ante 28 septembris 1860. 

LXIII. Legitimis principibus obedientiam detrectare, immo et rebellare 
licet. 

Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus 9 novembris 1846. 
Alloc. Quisque vestrum 4 octobris 1847. 
Epist. encycl. Noscitis et Nobiscum 8 decembris 1849. 
Litt. Apost. Cum catholica 26 martii 1860. 

LXIV. Turn cujusque sanctissimi juramenti violatio, turn quaelibet scelesta 
flagitiosaque actio sempiternae legi repugnans, non solum haud est impro- 
banda, verum etiam omnino licita, summisque laudibus efferenda, quando id 
pro patriae amore agatur. 

Alloc. Quibus quantisque 20 aprilis 1849. 

§ vni. 

ERRORES DE MATRIMONIO CHRISTIANO. 

LXV. Nulla ratione ferri potest, Christum evexisse matrimonium ad dig- 
nitatem sacramenti. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

LXVI. Matrimonii sacramentum non est nisi quid contractui accessorium 
ab eoque separabile, ipsumque sacramentum in una tantum nuptiali bene- 
dictione situm est. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 



SYLLABUS. 13 



Church, but are also, in deciding questions of jurisdiction, superior to the 
Church. 

Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 

LV. The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from 
the Church. 

Allocution Acerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 

§ VII. 

ERRORS CONCERNING NATURAL AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 

LVI. The laws of morality do not need the divine sanction, and it is not at 
all necessary that human laws be conformed to the law of nature, or receive 
from God their obligatory force. 

Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

LVII. The science of philosophy and morals, and also the civil laws, may and 
should deviate from divine and ecclesiastical authority. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

LVIII. No other powers are to be recognized but those resting in matter, 

and all moral discipline and integrity should be applied to accumulating and 

increasing wealth by every method and to satisfying the desire of pleasure. 

Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 
Encyclica Quanto conficiamur, Aug. 10, 1863. 

LIX. Right consists in the material fact, and all the duties of man are an 
empty name, and all human deeds have the force of right. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

LX. Authority is nothing but numbers and the sum of material forces. 
Allocution Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

LXI. The successful injustice of a deed brings no detriment to the sanctity 
of right. 

Allocution Jamdudum cernimus, March 18, 1861. 

LXII. The so-called principle of non-intervention should be proclaimed and 
observed. 

Allocution Novos et ante, Sept. 28, 1860. 

LXIII. It is allowable to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to 
rebel against them. 

Encyclica Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846. 
Allocution Quisque veslrum, Oct. 4, 1847. 
Encyclica Noscitis et Nobiscum, Dec. 8, 1849. 
Apostolic Letter Cum catholica, March 26, 1860. 

LXIV. The violation of any oath, however sacred, any wicke"d and flagitious 
action whatever, repugnant to the eternal law, is not only not to be reprobated, 
but is altogether permissible, and to be extolled with the highest praise, when 
it is done for love of country. 

Allocution Quibus quantisque, April 20, 1849. 

§ VIII. 

ERRORS CONCERNING CHRISTIAN MATRIMONY. 

LXV. It can in no way be shown that Christ raised matrimony to the dig- 
nity of a sacrament. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

LXVI. The sacrament of matrimony is only an accessory to the contract, 
and separable from it ; and the sacrament itself lies in the nuptial benediction 
alone. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 



14: SYLLABUS. 



LXYTT. Jure naturae matrimonii vinculum non est indissolubile. et in 

variis casibus divortimn proprie dictum auctoritate civili sanciri potest 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augu.sti 1n51. 
Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septenibris lto2. 

LXVIII. Ecclesia non habet potestatem impedimenta matrimonium diri- 
menria inducendi. sed ea potestas civili auctoritati competit, a qua impedi- 
menta existentia tollenda sunt. 

Litt. Apost. Afultiplices inter 10 junii 1851. 

LXIX. Ecclesia sequioribus saeculis dirimentia impedimenta inducere 
coepit, non jure proprio, sed illo jure usa. quod a civili potestate niutuata 
erat. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

LXX. Tridentini canones. qui anathematis censuram illis inferunt. qui 
facukatem impedimenta dirimentia inducendi Ecclesiae negare audeant, vel 
non sunt dogmatic! vel de hac mumata potestate intelligendi sunt. 
Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

LXXI. Tridentini forma sub infirmitatis poena non obligat. ubi lex civilis 
aliam formam praestituat. et velit hac nova forma interveniente matrimonium 

valere. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1S-51. 

LXX1I. Bonifacius VIII. votum castitatis in ordinatione emissum nuptias 
null as reddere primus asseruit. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 

LXXni. Vi contractus mere civilis potest inter christianos constare veri 
nominis matrimonium : falsumque est. aut contra c turn matrimonii inter 
christianos semper esse sacramentum. aut nullum esse contractum. si sacra- 
mentum excludatur. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1S51. 

Lettera di S. S. PIO IX al Re di sardegna, 9 setterubre 1S-52. 

Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 seprerubris 1852. 

Alloc. Multis grauibusque 17 decembris 1S60. 

LXXIV. Caussae matrimoniales et sponsalia suapte natura ad forum 

civile pertinent. 

Litt. Apost Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1S5L 
Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septembris 1852. 

N, B. Hue facere possunt duo allii errores de elericorum coelibatu abo- 
lendo et de statu matrimonii statui virginitatis anteferendo. Confodiuntur. 
prior in epist. encycl. Qui phiribus 9 novembris 1846, posterior in litteris 
Maltiplices inter 10 junii 1851. 

§ix. 

EKRORES DE CIVILI ROMAXI PONTIFICIS PRINCIPATU. 

LXXV. De temporalis regni cum spirituali compatibilitate disputant inter 
se christianae et catholicae Ecclesiae tilii. 

Litt. Apost. Ad apostolicae 22 augusti 1851. 
LXXVI. Abrogatio civilis imperii, quo Apostolica Sedes potitur, ad Eccle- 
siae libertatem felicitatemque vel maxime conduceret. 
Alloc. Quibus quantisque 20 aprilis 1819. 

X. B. Praetor hos errores explicite notatos. alii complures implicite re- 

probantur. proposita et asserta doctrina. «quam catholici omnes tirmissime 

retiuere debeant, de civili JRomani Poutificis principatu. Ejusmodi doctrina 

inter traditur in Alloc. Quibus quantisque 20 april. 1S49; in Alloc. Si 



SYLLABUS. 14 



LXVTI. According to the law of nature the bond of matrimony is not indis- 
soluble, and in various cases divorce, properly so called, may be sanctioned by 
the civil authority. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

Allocution Aeerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 

LXVIII. The Church has no power of introducing separatory impediments 
to marriage, but this power is vested in the civil authority, by which existing 
impediments may be removed. 

Apostolic Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 

LXIX. The Church began in later ages to introduce separatory impedi- 
ments, not in her own right, but using the right conferred upon her by the civil 
power. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

LXX. The canons of Trent, which inflict the censure of the curse on those 
who dare to deny the power of the Church to introduce separatory impediments, 
are either not dogmatical, or are to be understood of that conferred power. 
Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

LXXI. The form [of marriage] ordained by the Council of Trent is not 
obligatory, under pain of invalidity, wherever the civil law may prescribe 
another form and wills that marriage by this new form shall be valid. 
Apostolic Lettered apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

LXXII. Boniface VIII. was the first who asserted that the vow of chastity 
made at ordination renders marriage null. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

LXXIII. By virtue of a purely civil contract a true marriage may subsist 
between christians ; and it is false either that the contract of marriage between 
christians is always a sacrament, or that the contract is null if the sacrament 
be excluded. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

Letter of His Holiness, Pius IX, to the King of Sardinia, Sept. 9, 1852. 

Allocution Aeerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 

Allocution Multis gravibusque, Dec. 17, 1860. 

LXXIV. Matrimonial causes and espousals belong by their very nature to 

the civil courts. 

Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 
Allocution Aeerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 

N. B. To this head may be referred two other errors : on the abolition of 
the celibacy of the clergy, and on preferring the state of marriage to the state 
of virginity. They are condemned, the former in the Encyclica Qui pluribus, 
Nov. 9, 1846, the latter in the Apostolical Letter Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851. 

§ix. 

ERRORS CONCERNING THE CIVIL PRINCEDOM OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF. 

LXXV. The sons of the christian and catholic Church dispute among them- 
selves concerning the compatibility of the temporal with the spiritual kingdom. 
Apostolic Letter Ad apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851. 

LXXVI. The abrogation of the civil power, which the Apostolic See pos- 
sesses, would very greatly conduce to the liberty and felicity of the Church. 
Allocution Quibus quantisque, April 20, 1849. 

N. B. Beside these errors explicitly mentioned, many others are implicitly 
reprobated in the exposition and assertion of that doctrine concerning the civil 
princedom of the Roman Pontiif, to which all catholics should most firmly ad- 
here. This doctrine is clearly laid down in the Allocution Quibus quantisque, 



15 SYLLABUS. 



semper aniea 20 maii 1850; in Litt. Apost. Cum catholica Ecclesia 26 mart, 
1860; in Alloc. Novos 28 sept. 1860; in Alloc. Jamdudum 18 mart. 1861; 
in Alloc. Maxima quidem 9 junii 1862. 



§x. 

ERRORES, QUI AD LIBERALISMUM HODIERNUM REFERUNTUR. 

LXXVU. Aetate hac nostra non amplius expedit, religionem catholicam 
haberi tamquam unicam status religionem, ceteris quibuscuinque cultibus 
exclusis. 

Alloc. Nemo vestrum 26 julii 1855. 

LXXVIII. Hinc laudabiliter in quibusdam catholici nominis regionibus 
lege cautum est, ut hominibus illuc immigrantibus liceat publicum proprii 
cuj usque cultus exercitium habere. 

Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 septerabris 1852. 

LXXIX. Enimvero falsum est, civilem cujusque cultus libertatem, item- 
que plenam potestatem omnibus attributam, quaslibet opiniones cogitationes- 
que palam publiceque manifestandi, conducere ad populorum mores animos- 
que facilius corrumpendos ac indifferentismi pestem propagandas 
Alloc. Nunquam fore 15 decembris 1856. 

LXXX. Romanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progressu, cum liberalismo 
et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliare et componere. 
Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus 18 ruartii 1861.- 



SYLLABUS. 15 



April 20, 1849; in the Allocution Si semper antea, May 20, 1850; in the Apos- 
tolical Letter Cum catholica Ecclesia, March 26, 1860; in the Allocution JVovos, 
Sept. 28, 1860; in the Allocution Jamdudum, March 18, 1861; in the Allocu- 
tion Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862. 

§x. 

ERRORS WHICH REFER TO THE LIBERALISM OP THE DAY. 

LXXVII. In this our age it is no longer expedient that the catholic religion 
should be held to be the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other 
forms of worship. 

Allocution Nemo vestrum, July 26, 1865. 

LXXVIII. Hence it has been laudably provided by law in certain catholic 
countries, that men immigrating there should be permitted the public exercise 
of their own several forms of worship. 

Allocution Aeerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852. 

LXXIX. For truly it is false, that the civil liberty of every form of worship, 
and the full power granted to all of openly and publicly declaring all opinions 
and thoughts whatever, leads to the easier corruption of the morals and minds 
of peoples, and to the spread of the pest of indifferentism. 
Allocution Nunquam fore, Dec. 15, 1856. 

LXXX. The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile and harmonize him- 
self with progress, with liberalism, and with modern civilization. 
Allocution Jamdudum, March 18. 1861. 



LETTER OF CARDINAL ANTONELLI. 



[With the foregoing Encyclica and Syllabus all the bishops received the 
following letter from Cardinal Antonelli, explaining the origin of the Syllabus 
and its relation to the Encyclica, I regret that I have been unable to obtain 
the whole Latin text of the letter ; the first (important) half of it, as given in 
the note below, is taken from one of the oldest and most influential organs of 
the Roman Church published in Germany, Der Katholik (January, 1865). For 
the translation, which is complete, the Dublin (Catholic) Review, of April, 1865, 
is responsible. — T. V.] 

Our Holy Father, Pius IX, Sovereign Pontiff, being profoundly anxious 
for the salvation of souls and for sound doctrine, has never ceased* from the 
commencement of his Pontificate to proscribe and condemn the chief errors 
and false doctrines of our most unhappy age, by his published Encyclicals, and 
Consistorial Allocutions, and other Apostolic Letters. But as it may happen 
that all the Pontificial acts do not reach each one of the Ordinaries, the same 
Sovereign Pontiff has willed that a Syllabus of the same errors should be com- 
piled, to be sent to all the bishops of the Catholic world, in order that these 
bishops may have before their eyes all the errors and pernicious doctrines 
which he has reprobated and condemned. 1 

He has consequently charged me to take care that this Syllabus, having been 
printed, should be sent to your [Eminence] on this occasion and at this time 
when the same Sovereign Pontiff, from his great solicitude for the salvation 
and [general] good of the Catholic Church and of the whole flock divinely in- 
trusted to him, has thought well to write another Encyclical Letter to all the 
Catholic bishops. Accordingly, performing, as is my duty, with all suitable 
zeal and submission the commands of the said Pontiff, I send your [Eminence] 
the said Syllabus together with this letter. 

I seize with much pleasure this occasion of expressing my sentiments of re- 
spect and devotion to your [Eminence], and of once more subscribing myself, 
while 1 humbly kiss your hands, 

Your [Eminence's] most humble and devoted servant, 

G. Card. Antonelli. 

Rome, Dec. 8, 1864. 



1 Sanctissirnus Dominus Pius IX P. M. de animarum salute, ac de sana doctrina 
maxime sollicitus vel ab ipso sui Pontiflcatus exordio nunquam destitit suis Epist- 
olis ency elicis, et allocutionibus in consistoriishabitis, et apostolicis aliis Litteris in 
vulgus editis praecipuos hujus praesertim infelicissimae aetatis errores ac falsas 
doctrinas proscribere et daninare. Cum autem forte evenire potuerit, ut omnia 
haec Pontincia Acta ad singulos Ordinarios minime pervenerint, iccirco idem Pon- 
tifex voluit, ut eorumdem errorum Syllabus ad omnes oniversi eatholici orbis Sa- 
crorum Antistites mittendus conficeiretur, quo iidem Antistites prae oculis habere 
possent omnes errores ac perniciosas doctrinas, quae ab ipso reprobatae, ac pro- 
scriptae sunt. 



(16) 



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